r 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


OF" 


WU 


Class 


, 


PAPERS  AND  ADDRESSES 


ON 


Phases  of  the  Labor 
Problem 


BY 


HERMAN  JUSTI 

Commissioner  of  the  Illinois  Coal  Operators' 
Association 

SPRINGFIELD,    ILL. 


1905 


Papers   and  Addresses 


ON 


Phases  of  the  Labor 
Problem 


BY 


HERMAN    JUSTI 

I* 

Commissioner  of  the  Illinois  Coal 
Operators'   Association 

SPRINGFIELD,    ILL. 


1905 


BY  WAY  OF  PREFACE 


The  papers  presented  in  this  booklet  are  here  reprinted 
to  supply  a  demand  for  them  in  this  form  that  has  come  up 
since  their  original  appearance  in  the  various  publications 
to  which  they  are  credited.  In  a  number  of  cases,  where 
no  credit  it  given,  the  pamphlet  in  which  the  matter  original- 
ly appeared  was  printed  for  the  information  of  students  of 
the  labor  problem  who  were  making  inquiry  into  certain  of 
its  phases.  The  original  supply  having  become  exhausted, 
and  the  demand  continuing,  a  number  of  the  pamphlets  for- 
merly issued  are  herewith  reprinted. 

There  are  two  papers  herein  contained  which  are  given 
by  permission  of  the  publishers  of  Bob  Taylor's  Magazine, 
of  Nashville,  Tenn.,  a  new  and  live  candidate  for  public 
favor,  and  one  paper  from  The  Century  Magazine,  repro- 
duced by  permission  of  the  Century  Company. 

The  subjects  here  treated  are  among  those  engaging  the 
attention  of  thoughtful,  practical  and  patriotic  men  and 
women  everywhere.  The  sole  wish  of  the  author  is  to  con- 
tribute, in  ever  so  slight  a  manner,  to  the  solution  of  the 
problems  studied. 

In  addition  to  the  papers  and  addresses  contained  in  the 
present  volume  the  author  has  the  following,  and  can  still 
supply  on  request  a  few  copies  of  those  marked  with  an 
asterisk : 

*Plans  of  Conciliation  and  Arbitration,  Together  with  a 
Plea  for  the  Organization  of  the  Employer  Class  as  a  Pre- 
requisite. Read  at  the  Conference  on  Industrial  Arbitra- 
tion, held  under  the  auspices  of  the  National  Civic  Federa- 
tion, at  Steinway  Hall,  Chicago,  111.,  December  17  and  18, 
1900. 

*Conciliation  and  Arbitration  in  the  Coal  Mining  Indus- 
try. Paper  read  before  American  Economic  Association, 
Washington,  D.  C,  December  28,  1901. 

Testimony  before  the  National  Industrial  Commission, 
Washington,  D.  C,  May  13,  1901,  on  the  Conditions  of  La- 
bor in  the  Coal  Mining  Industry  of  Illinois. 

3 

14 


4  Papers  and  Addresses 

The  Illinois  Coal  Operators'  Plan  for  Preventing  Strikes. 

Common  Sense  and  the  Labor  Problem.  An  experiment 
by  the  coal  miners  and  coal  mine  owners  of  Illinois. 

Suggestions  for  a  National  Board  of  Arbitration. 

*Arbitration ;  Its  Uses  and  Abuses.  Address  delivered 
at  the  National  Convention  of  Employer  and  Employe,  Min- 
neapolis, Minn.,  September  23,  1902. 

*The  Organization  of  Capital.  Lecture  delivered  under 
the  auspices  of  the  Twentieth  Century  Club,  at  Faneuil 
Hall,  Boston,  Mass.,  November  20,  1902. 

Trade  Agreements  a  Bar  to  Sympathetic  Strikes. 

*The  Coal  Mine  Operator  versus  The  Public.  An  ad- 
dress delivered  on  "Coal  Men's  Day"  at  the  Louisiana  Pur- 
chase Exposition,  St.  Louis,  Mo.,  July  20,  1904. 

*Organization  and  Public  Opinion.  An  address  deliv- 
ered at  the  Convention  of  the  Inter-State  Retail  Coal  Deal- 
ers' Association,  Masonic  Temple,  Chicago,  June  23,  1903. 

*Businesslike  Methods  Applied  to  Labor  Disputes.  An 
address  delivered  before  the  Chicago  Press  Club,  Wednes- 
day, October  5,  1904. 

*The  Humors  of  Coal  Mining. 

Springfield,  111.,  Oct.  2d,  1905. 


INDEX 


By  Way  of  Preface    5 

System  of  Joint  Trade  Agreements 7 

(Address  at  Joliet,  111.,  Labor  Day,  Sept  4,  1905.) 

Correspondence  with  President  Eliot 17 

(Reprinted  from  FUEL,  Feb.-Mar.,  1904.) 

The  Basis  of  Agreement 24 

(Minutes  of  Joint  Interstate  Conference,  Indianapolis, 
1902.) 

The  Open  Shop  Versus  the  Closed  Shop ....   26 
(Address  at  Streator,  111.,  Chautauqua,  July  8,  1905.) 

The  Organization  of  Capital 45 

(The  Century  Magazine,  February,   1903.) 

Labor  Problem  in  the  South 50 

(Bob  Taylor's  Magazine,  April,  1905.) 

The  South's  Sure  Way  to  Industrial  Peace.  .   61 
(Bob  Taylor's  Magazine,  October,  1905.) 

Relations  of  Capital  and  Lqbor 75 

(Address  at  Springfield,  111.,  Labor  Day,  Sept.  3,  1900.) 


THE  SYSTEM  OF  JOINT 

TRADE  AGREEMENTS 


The  system  of  joint  trade  agreements,  while  never  gen- 
erally adopted  by  the  managers  and  laborers  of  the  great 
industries  of  the  world,  is  not  a  new  system,  it  having  been 
used  for  many  years  here  and  there,  at  home  and  abroad, 
with  varying  degrees  of  success.  When,  however,  the  sys- 
tem has  been  a  success,  this  success  was  due  to  the  strict 
observance  of  business  honor  and  of  correct  business  meth- 
ods by  both  the  laborer  and  the  manager,  and  if  the  system 
is  ever  to  be  universally  observed  by  capital  and  labor,  it  will 
be  when  the  parties  in  interest  strictly  observe  these 
fundamental  business  principles.  The  system  in  the  future, 
therefore,  will  be  anything  from  a  gratifying  success  to  a 
mere  make-shift,  and  from  a  mere  make-shift  to  a  failure, 
in  the  exact  degree  in  which  we  adhere  to  or  in  which  we 
depart  from  essential  fundamental  virtues. 

The  advocate  of  almost  any  system  usually,  quack-like, 
bestows  upon  it  his  unqualified  praise,  and  claims  that  it  is 
perfect  in  both  theory  and  practice.  This  is  extremely 
unfortunate,  for  the  reason  that  any  system,  however 
meritorious,  or  however  correct  in  theory,  must  fail  to  ful- 
fill such  unreasonable  expectations.  It  is  unfortunate  that 
those  whom  such  an  advocate  seeks  to  convince,  having 
knowledge  of  whole  or  partial  failures  in  the  past,  naturally 
conclude  that  the  whole  system  is  wrong,  and  merely  be- 
cause the  advocate,  either  in  his  too  great  zeal  or  in  his  too 
great  recklessness  of  statement,  does  not  tell  the  whole 
truth.  Nothing  helps  a  good  cause  so  much  as  candor,  and 
nothing  hurts  it  more  than  extravagant  claim  or  intentional 
deception. 

In  my  advocacy  of  the  system  of  joint  trade  agreements, 
I  want  to  make  it  perfectly  clear  that  while  I  have  found, 
as  has  been  often  charged,  that  the  system  was  at  times 
one  thing  in  theory  and  another  thing  in  practice,  this  un- 
fortunate result  was  due  not  to  any  fault  of  the  system  itself, 

*An  address  delivered  at  Joliet,  111.,  on  Labor  Day,  Sept.  4,  1905. 

7 


8  Papers  and  Addresses 

but  was  due  to  the  fact  that  the  parties  to  these  joint  trade 
agreements  were  themselves  at  fault. 

Labor  Not  to   Be  Ignored  in  Business. 

It  has  always  been  incomprehensible  to  me  that  we,  busi- 
ness men,  should  persist  in  treating  the  element  of  labor 
as  outside  of  or  exempt  from  the  ordinary  rules  of  business. 
We  contract  for  our  raw  material  after  a  friendly  confer- 
ence with  those  who  have  raw  materials  for  sale,  and,  in 
turn,  we  dispose  of  our  products  by  friendly  agreement  with 
the  buyer.  Why  should  be  not  treat  labor,  so  far  as  the 
wage  question  is  concerned,  as  a  commodity,  and  agree  to 
buy  so  much  of  it  as  we  need  at  a  reasonable  price  after  a 
friendly,  business  conference  with  those  who  have  labor 
for  sale  ? 

Now,  this  idea  underlies,  as  I  comprehend  it,  the  whole 
system  of  joint  trade  agreements.  This  seems  to  me  a 
good  foundation — a  solid  basis — for  a  wise,  comprehensive 
system,  through  the  medium  of  which,  employers  and  em- 
ployes can  best  determine  the  value,  according  to  commer- 
cial or  competitive  conditions,  of  that  commodity  which  the 
one  class  desires  to  buy  and  the  other  class  desires  to  sell. 

I  do  not  know  who,  in  modern  times,  is  entitled  to  the 
credit  or  the  honor  of  suggesting  the  system  of  joint  trade 
agreements,  but  the  idea  was  no  doubt  borrowed — and  it  is 
just  as  good  even  though  it  was  borrowed — from  an  ancient 
prophet. 

More   than  2700  years   ago,   the   Prophet   Isaiah   said : 
"Come  now,  let  us  reason  together." 

All  of  our  misunderstandings,  all  of  our  wars  between 
nations,  and  our  industrial  wars,  without  exception,  are,  I 
am  confident,  due  to  a  failure  to  do  what  Isaiah  pro- 
posed, and  no  misunderstanding  is  ever  settled,  nor  is  any 
war  ever  ended,  until  the  disputants  settle  down  to  reason 
with  each  other.  Say  what  you  will  on  the  subject  of  labor 
disputes,  the  fact  remains  that  the  great  conflict  between  the 
forces  of  capital  and  labor  can  be  settled  finally,  only  in  one 
way,  and  that  way  is  by  mutual  agreement.  You  can  settle 
its  conflicts  temporarily  by  fighting — by  whipping  somebody 
— but  somehow  they  don't  remain  whipped,  for  no  sooner 
has  that  somebody  been  whipped  than  he  comes  again. 

Right  now  the  war  between  Russia  and  Japan  cannot  be 
settled  by  fighting — it  will  be  settled  according  to  the  plan 
of  Isaiah,  by  "reasoning  together." 


System  of  Joint  Trade  Agreements  9 

This  system  of  joint  trade  agreements  is  a  common- 
sense,  practical  and  reasonable  system,  and  for  no  other 
people  in  the  world  is  it  so  admirably  designed  as  for  the 
citizens  of  a  great  democracy  like  our  own.  But  the  op- 
ponents of  this  system  are  accustomed  to  offer  many  rea- 
sons for  refusing  to  recognize  or  adopt  it.  Indeed,  some  of 
the  friends  of  the  system — friends  who  have  operated  their 
industries  under  it  for  years — seem  reluctant  to  continue  it. 

The  Fault  Not  With  the  System. 

Again,  I  insist  that  the  fault  is  not  with  the  system,  but,  as 
I  have  already  observed,  with  those  doing  business  under 
it,  and  yet  I  can  readily  understand  the  reluctance  of  the  one 
class  to  adopt  it,  and  of  the  other  class  to  continue  it. 

No  one  wishes  to  do  business  with  an  individual,  firm, 
company,  organization  or  community  that  does  not  look 
upon  a  contract  as  a  sacred  obligation.  No  liberty-loving 
being  wants  to,  or  will,  do  business  with  anyone  that  seeks 
to  obtain  business  recognition  by  mere  force.  Nor  does 
any  reputable  person  want  to  surround  himself  with  a  band 
of  irresponsible,  dictatorial,  vulgar,  incompetent,  so-called 
workers.  It  is  justly  claimed  that  some  labor  organizations 
are  of  the  class  that  will  not  keep  their  word,  and  that  will 
resort  to  brutal  violence. 

It  cannot  be  justly  charged,  I  feel  certain,  that  all,  or  a 
majority,  or  any  very  considerable  number  of  men  in  any 
labor  organization  really  belong  to  the  class  I  have  just  de- 
scribed. But  appearances  are  too  often  against  them,  and  it 
is  too  often  the  case  that  the  prominence,  or  dominating 
influence,  of  a  mischief-making  few  gives  color  to  the 
charge  that  certain  labor  organizations  are  irresponsible,  and 
that  they  do  not  mean  to  be  fair  and  upright. 

But  as  representatives  of  organized  labor,  you  will  say, 
why  should  the  many  be  judged  by  the  acts  of  the  few,  or 
why  should  they  suffer  because  of  the  acts  of  the  few? 
Why? 

I  speak  from  an  experience  of  many  years,  and  from 
a  very  close  personal  knowledge  of  my  subject,  and  I  also 
speak  from  a  most  sincere  desire  to  be  helpful  to  the 
cause  of  organized  labor.  Answering  your  query,  I  say  that 
it  is  because  you  too  readily  find  reasons  for  excusing  wrong 
action,  and  you  defend  the  wrong-doer,  be  his  ofTense  ever 
so  gross  or  glaring. 

I    would    be    a    mean,    false    friend    to    the    cause    of 


io  Papers  and  Addresses 

organized  labor  if  I  told  you  only  pleasant  things  to  flatter 
your  vanity,  or  if  I  should  withhold  the  truth  for  fear  of 
losing  your  good  will.  By  such  a  course,  both  employer 
and  employe  as  classes  would  suffer. 

I  confidently  believe  in  the  system  of  joint  trade  agree- 
ments. I  believe  with  all  the  intensity  of  my  nature  that 
that  system  may  become  most  effective  for  good,  and  will 
the  sooner  be  the  universal  system,  when  we,  employers  and 
employes,  have  decided  to  be  honest  with  each  other  and 
honest  with  ourselves,  when  we  are  prepared  to  tell  each 
other  the  plain  truth,  with  calm,  respectful,  reasonable 
candor,  and  when,  also,  so  far  as  organization  is  concerned, 
the  capital  and  labor  classes  are  equally  well  matched,  so 
that  the  one  is  a  check  upon  the  grasping  tendency  of  the 
other. 

Each  Has  Rights  and  a  Reciprocal    Interest. 

We  all  have  certain  rights  which  each  in  turn  has 
ignored  or  outraged,  simply  because  we  have  closed  our 
eyes  to  reason  and  the  truth.  We  have  a  reciprocal — if  not 
a  common — interest,  and  yet  we  pull  apart  instead  of  pull- 
ing together.  We  eagerly  seek  for  differences  that  estrange 
us  instead  of  looking  for  points  of  agreement  that  should 
unite  us.  That  we  are  kept  apart  is  due  in  a  greater  or  less 
degree  to  our  unwillingness  to  be  open-eyed,  fair-minded, 
reasonable.  Let  us  realize  this  fact  in  time,  for  is  it  not 
true  that  "every, great  tragedy  in  the  world's  history  was 
due  to  unreason?"  The  first  gun  of  the  late  Civil  War 
made  every  adult  mind  of  more  than  average  intelligence, 
in  both  the  North  and  the  South,  realize  that  unreason  was 
rending  in  twain  the  fairest  and  freest  land  under  the  sun, 
but  no  one  would  admit  it  until  its  soil  had  drunk  the  blood 
of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  brave  men  and  one-half  of  our 
land  was  made  desolate. 

As  a  representative  of  capital,  though  I  am  only  an  em- 
ploye— not  a  capitalist — I  want  to  present  to  the  capital 
class  my  reasons  for  believing  that  the  surest  way  out  of  all 
of  our  industrial  complications  lies  along  the  line  of  the  joint 
trade  agreement  system.  That  is,  provided  the  employer 
class  will  consent  to  organize  thoroughly  itself  for  the  pur- 
pose of  doing  business  with  labor,  organized  or  unorganized, 
in  order  that  it  may  the  more  easily  concede  to  labor  its  just 
rights  and  exact  from  labor  what  is  due  it. 

But  before   attempting  this,   I  have   decided  that  you 


System  of  Joint  Trade  Agreements  n 

would  not  be  offended  if  I  presented  to  the  representatives 
of  organized  labor — on  this  day,  Labor's  4th  of  July —  a  few 
important,  homely  truths.  Indeed,  it  is  essential  that  these 
truths  should  be  presented  and  also  accepted  before  we  can 
hope  to  see  a  more  earnest  and  general — not  to  say  a  uni- 
versal— recognition  and  adoption  of  the  system  of  joint 
trade  agreements,  and  this  should  be  apparent  to  all,  since 
any  system,  however  admirable, — however  perfect, — must 
fail  unless  it  has  the  honest,  intelligent,  practical  support  of 
the  individual  adherents  or  advocates  of  that  system,  both 
on  the  side  of  labor  and  on  the  side  of  capital.  I  mean 
no  offense  when  I  say, — in  fact,  I  say  it  because  I 
desire  to  be  useful  and  helpful, — that  no  matter  how  strong 
labor  organizations  may  become,  unless  they  are  supported, 
encouraged  and  directed  by  high  character  and  sound  intel- 
ligence, they  cannot  survive.  It  is  easy  enough  for  labor 
organizations  to  get  along  when  prosperity  is  at  high  tide, 
and  when  business  men  find  trade  so  brisk  and  profits 
so  large  as  to  justify,  it  would  seem,  any  conces- 
sion in  wages  or  principle  rather  than  submit  to  a  suspen- 
sion of  such  operations  and  by  such  suspension  lose  a  few 
dollars. 

Labor   Organizations  Will  Survive. 

The  question  is:  "Can  labor  organizations  survive  the 
reverses  which  come  to  us  in  cycles,  as  spring,  summer, 
autumn  and  winter  follow  each  other  in  their  turn,  and  can 
they  be  relied  upon  to  act  wisely  under  great  disappoint- 
ments ?  The  enemies  of  organized  labor,  the  friendly  critics 
of  organized  labor,  many  leaders  of  organized  labor  even, 
have  often  asked  this  question  and  usually  have  answered  it 
in  the  negative.  The  labor  organizations  will  survive,  I 
believe,  because  American  laborers  will  see  the  necessity  of 
wise,  conservative,  concerted  action  before  it  is  too  late,  and 
because  wise,  honest  labor  men  will  insist  on  pulling  away 
from  those  who  are  just  the  reverse,  and  will  refuse  to 
endorse  self-confessed  grafters  and  red-handed  murderers. 

I  confidently  believe  that  the  representatives  of  organized 
labor  will  ponder  well  the  reasons  that  exist  for  heeding  the 
advice  of  those  whose  training  and  patriotism  enable  them 
to  speak  from  a  wide  and  convincing  experience,  and  from 
a  desire  to  serve  their  country. 

Before  presenting  my  reasons  for  advocating  the  system 
of  joint  trade  agreements  in  the  United  States,  I  wish  to 


12  Papers  and  Addresses 

say  at  this  time,  and  on  this  auspicious  occasion,  that  there 
are  some  plain,  homely  truths,  of  paramount  importance, 
that  must  be  presented  and  that  you  must  accept,  if  the 
great  movement  in  which  you  are  engaged,  and  the  mod- 
erate success  which  you  are  to-day  celebrating  with  so  much 
commendable  enthusiasm,  is  to  be  an  unqualified  success 
and  a  permanent  benefit  to  its  adherents  and  to  the  country 
at  large. 

First  of  all,  let  me  emphasize  the  fact  that  the  masses  in 
America  must  learn  that  we  can  no  more  equalize  fortunes 
and  conditions  than  we  can  equalize  brain  or  brawn.  Some 
misguided  leaders  are  trying  to  convince  wage  earners 
that  this  can  be  done.  The  power  to  do  this,  let  me  declare, 
does  not  rest  in  man ;  it  rests  alone  in  the  Almighty. 

Wages  Cannot  Always  Advance, 

They  must  also  learn  that  wages  cannot  always  advance, 
and  if  it  is  a  principle  of  organized  labor,  as  some  labor 
leaders  insist,  never  to  surrender  any  advance  in  wages,  nor 
any  advantage  once  obtained,  then  the  system  of  joint  trade 
agreements  must  be  given  up.  If  the  system  of  joint  trade 
agreements  is  not  elastic  enough  to  sympathetically  respond 
to  pronounced  changes  in  trade  conditions,  then  it  is  not  the 
system  for  which  the  American  people  are  in  eager,  earnest 
and  determined  search. 

Your  organization  may  secure  for  you  the  highest  scale 
of  wages,  but  your  earnings  must  be  made  large  by  your 
individual  effort.  Depend  upon  it,  that  only  insofar  as  you 
put  heart  and  brain  into  your  work,  can  a  high  scale  of 
wages,  or  any  scale  at  all,  be  of  benefit  to  you.  Nor  will 
these  higher  wages  be  to  your  advantage  unless  out  of  your 
greater  earnings  you  save  something  for  that  rainy  day 
almost  sure  to  come  in  the  experience  of  all  men; — some- 
thing that  shall  build  a  home  in  which  honor,  virtue  and 
faith  are  a  supreme  trinity  to  successfully  contend  with  ig- 
norance, want  and  doubt. 

Whatever  others  may  say  to  the  contrary,  I  believe 
that  every  intelligent  employer  of  labor,  who  has  taken 
-the  time  to  give  the  matter  due  consideration,  is  will- 
ing to  pay  to  labor  every  cent  to  which  it  is  entitled, 
providing  the  quality  of  the  service  rendered  is  the 
best  of  which  the  employe  is  capable.  I  believe  that  under 
the  system  of  joint  trade  agreements  organized  capital  will 
enforce  this  rule  where  at  present  it  does  not  exist. 


„.     T 

System  of  Joint  Trade  Agreements  13 

Must  Be  Faithful  and  Loyal. 

If  you  are  determined  to  preserve  your  union,  you  must 
be  faithful  to  your  pledges  and  loyal  to  your  leaders.  You 
must,  as  individuals,  feel  bound  by  and  respect  all  contracts 
made  for  you  by  your  officials,  and  after  a  contract  has 
been  made,  you  cannot  afford  to  set  its  provisions  aside 
by  legislative  enactments.  You  may  be  able  to  convince 
time  serving  politicians  that  this  is  right,  but  the  public, — 
never.  If  you  intend  that  the  principles  of  trade  unionism 
shall  prevail,  if  you  want  them  recognized  and  yourselves 
respected,  you  must  make  unionism  a  synonym  for  good 
workmanship,  for  integrity,  and  for  fidelity  to  country.  The 
mere  loud,  boastful  claim  of  some  of  your  leaders  that 
union  labor  is  always  the  best  doesn't  make  it  so.  You 
must  make  it  so,  and  you  must  convince  those  who  buy  it 
that  you  know  what  you  are  talking  about. 

The  eight-hour  law,  the  enactment  of  which  you  annually 
celebrate,  is  a  good  thing.  I  believe  in  it,  but  it  will  be  help- 
ful to  the  laboring  man  only  in  so  far  as  he  uses  his  leisure 
for  his  own  material  or  intellectual  advancement,  or  for  the 
benefit  of  his  wife  and  children.  God  bless  these  wives  and 
children,  for  I  know  from  a  close  study  of  men, — the  heads 
and  the  providers  of  families, — that  they  too  often  are  the 
objects  of  our  last  instead  of  our  first  care.  Make  them  uni- 
versally our  first  thought  and  care,  and  this  world  of  ours 
will  be  a  brighter  and  better  world.  If,  by  reason  of  the 
shorter  hours  of  labor,  you  improve  yourselves,  and  confer 
benefits  upon  those  dependent  upon  you,  you  will  have  rea- 
son to  rejoice ;  but  if  the  hours  of  leisure  which  you  have 
obtained  by  reason  of  the  shorter  hours  of  labor  shall  be 
used  in  dissipation  or  riotous  living,  then  it  were  far  better 
to  reduce  again  hours  of  leisure  and  to  increase  your  hours 
of  work,  for  idleness  is  the  prolific  mother  of  the  deadliest 
sins.  Would  to  heaven  men  could  learn  to  discriminate  by 
practice  of  the  former  between  upbuilding  leisure  and  de- 
structive idleness. 

Best   Representatives  Must  Control. 

Labor  organizations  have  grown  strong,  and  they  now 
possess  such  power  for  good  or  for  evil  that  the  time  has 
arrived  when  the  administration  of  their  affairs  must  be  con- 
trolled, not  by  petty  politicians,  not  by  their  weakest,  but  by 
their  strongest  representatives.  The  day  has  gone,  never  to 
return,  when  you  can  advance  your  cause  by  force  and  vio- 


14  Papers  and  Addresses 

lence.  Public  opinion  in  the  United  States  has  decided  this 
once  and  for  all.  It  has  decided  that  we  have  ad- 
vanced far  enough  along  the  highway  of  Christian  civil- 
ization to  adjust  our  differences  without  resort  to  abuse  or 
violence. 

In  these  observations  made  to-day,  I  have  endeavored  to 
show  that  business  methods,  and  the  highest  business  char- 
acter, are  prerequisites  to  a  general  or  universal  recogni- 
tion, by  the  employer  class,  of  the  system  of  joint  trade 
agreements,  and  I  confidently  believe  that  whenever  you 
are  able  to  prove  unquestioned  ability  to  do  business  in  a 
businesslike  manner,  and  to  discard  many  of  the  worth- 
less rules  and  shameful  practices  that  have  been  a 
blot  upon  your  record  and  a  check  to  your  more  rapid 
growth, — rules  and  practices  that  too  often  repel  fair- 
minded  employers — you  will  achieve  a  lasting  triumph ; 
not  before,  and  not  otherwise.  For  permanent  success 
is  possible  only  where  correct  economic  laws  are  ob- 
served. To  expect  permanent  success  otherwise  is  as  un- 
reasonable and  hopeless  as  to  expect  the  earth  to  yield  a 
harvest  where  all  the  laws  of  nature  are  ignored, — where 
there  is  no  sun  to  warm,  no  rain  to  moisten  and  no  fertiliz- 
ing elements  to  enrich  the  soil  in  which  seed  and  plant  have 
been  unscientifically  deposited.  The  sooner  we  compre- 
hend these  prerequisites,  the  sooner  shall  we  witness  a 
steady,  if  not  a  very  rapid,  increase  in  the  recognition  of 
joint  trade  agreements  by  the  great  industries  of  our  coun- 
try, and  the  sooner  the  better. 

But  I  am  expected  to  give  my  reasons  for  advocating  the 
general  adoption  of  the  system  of  joint  trade  agreements. 
Of  one  thing  I  can  assure  you,  and  that  is  that  I  favor  the 
system  for  no  selfish  or  sentimental  reason,  but  because  it  is 
a  business  system  pure  and  simple. 

Reasons  for  Joint  Trade  Agreement. 

I  favor  it,  because  I  believe  it  tends  to  broaden  and  en- 
lighten those  who  participate  in  it.  I  favor  it  because  I 
believe  it  will  eliminate  from  the  rank  of  employers  the  men 
who  are  responsible  for  what  is  known  as  a  "cut-throat" 
policy  in  trade, — a  policy  responsible  always  for  low  wages, 
— and  further  that  it  will  ultimately  drive  from  positions 
of  honor  and  trust  in  labor  organizations  a  class  of  ruffians 
who  are  its  greatest  disgrace  and  its  chief  menace ; — a  class 
of  men  half  fools,  half  rogues. 


System  of  Joint  Trade  Agreements  15 

This  system  may  not  make  us,  perhaps,  less  eager  to  ob- 
tain all  our  own  rights,  but  it  will  tend  to  open  our 
eyes  to  the  rights  of  others.  It  will  help  us  to  see  that 
the  question  of  labor  and  its  compensations  is  an  economic 
question  and  nothing  else.  I  favor  the  system  not  only  for 
what  it  has  already  done,  but  for  what  I  believe  it  will  do 
in  the  future.  In  the  coal  mining  industry  of  the  country, 
for  example,  if  it  has  done  nothing  else,  it  has  at  least 
brought  the  coal  mine  operators  closer  together,  and  to  the 
end  that  they  are  less  suspicious  of  each  other,  and,  there- 
fore, hold  each  other  in  higher  respect.  None  of  us  are 
either  so  good  or  so  bad  as  we  seem,  and  if  our  relations 
become  sufficiently  intimate,  so  that  we  may  be  seen  by 
each  other  just  as  we  are,  the  cause  of  truth  and  justice 
will  be  advanced. 

Can  Evolve  Perfect  System. 

I  am  for  the  present  system  of  joint  trade  agreements, 
not  because  that  system  has  proven  to  be  approximately  per- 
fect, but  because  I  believe  out  of  it  can  be  evolved  a  system 
that  will  be  perfect.  It  surely  does  what  nothing  else  so  far 
has  been  able  to  do  for  the  employer  class,  and  that  is  that 
it  has  had  the  effect  of  opening  their  eyes  to  their  actual 
needs.  Long  ago,  in  attending  joint  conventions,  I  was  im- 
pressed with  the  fact  that  the  workers  were  not  properly 
organized,  and  that  the  employers  were  very  poorly,  if  at  all, 
organized.  The  fact  is  that  neither  side  seemed  to  have  a 
fair,  correct,  common-sense  idea  as  to  the  basis  of  organiza- 
tion for  the  parties  to  a  joint  movement,  where  the  ends  to 
be  accomplished  were  simply  the  making  of  contracts.  That 
the  individuals  were  not  properly  equipped  was  not  due  to 
any  mental  deficiency,  but  rather  to  a  lack  of  the  right  sort 
of  training  so  absolutely  necessary  where  the  employer  and 
the  employe  class  are  expected  to  cope  with  each  other,  and 
where,  jointly,  they  are  expected  to  cope  with  the  problems 
that  concern  both. 

I  favor  the  system  because  I  know  it  has  brought  together 
kindred  souls  in  different  walks  of  life  who  otherwise  might 
have  been  drawn  farther  and  farther  apart,  increasing  the 
bitterness  felt  by  one  for  the  other, — of  one  class  for  the 
other, — and  has  thus  made  them  at  times  influences  in  prc 
serving  peace  where  otherwise  they  could  have  been  influ- 
enced to  make  a  long,  bitter  conflict  inevitable. 

It  has  cleared  away  doubt  in  many  minds,  and  has  often 


1 6  Papers  and  Addresses 

made  of  unreasoning  radicals,  wise  and  helpful  conserva- 
tives. 

The  System  Full  of  Promise. 

It  is  too  much  to  expect  that  this  young  system  has 
brought  peace  everywhere  in  the  industrial  world,  and  it 
cannot  bring  universal  peace  until  we  are  universally  more 
enlightened, — of  kindlier  and  fairer  and  less  selfish  disposi- 
tions. It  will  be  a  long  time  before  wars  and  rumors  of 
war  between  nations  or  classes  shall  cease — and  that  time 
may  never  come — but  if  the  joint  trade  agreement  helps  to 
move  us  in  the  right  direction ;  if  it  is,  as  I  contend,  the 
best  system  so  far  evolved;  if  it  continues  in  the  future  to 
steadily  improve  upon  what  it  has  done  in  the  past,  we 
should  welcome  it  as  a  bow  of  promise  that  spreads  itself 
across  the  industrial  firmament  and  illumines  it  with  hope. 

Take  home  to-night  this  thought,  and  dwell  on  it,  gentle- 
men, that  the  precious  assurances  that  however  severely  we 
may  condemn  the  materialistic  age  in  which  we  live — the  so- 
called  dominant  spirit  of  commercialism, — the  tendency  in 
the  labor  world  at  least  is  nevertheless  away  from  the  teach- 
ings and  practices  of  Nero  and  Caligula,  of  miser  and  ty- 
rant, and  in  favor  of  what  Christ  said  and  of  what  Christ 
did, — and  if  we  would  make  this  more  and  more  widely, 
more  emphatically  and  more  noticeably  true, — let  us  the 
oftener  say  to  each  other  what  the  ancient  prophet  said : 

"Come  now,  let  us  reason  together." 

'  'Let  us  reason  without  greed,  spite  or  bitterness ;  let  us 
reason,  if  possible,  without  selfish  and  in  a  spirit  of  justice 
and  of  mutual  helpfulness.  Thus  a  better  chance  for  suc- 
cess and  for  happiness  will  be  guaranteed  to  us  and  entering 
in  this  spirit  upon  our  unavoidable  business  conflicts  and 
contentions,  we  may  rest  assured  that  victory  will  impartial- 
ly perch  upon  your  banner  or  upon  ours,  the  determining 
influence  being  not  might,  but  right." 


DR.  ELIOT'S  MISCONCEPTION 

OF  TRADE  AGREEMENT  IDEA 


The  joint  agreement  system  and  its  bearings  on  the 
public  formed  the  basis  of  an  interesting  rejoinder  to  an 
address  delivered  by  Dr.  Eliot  before  the  Boston  Central 
Labor  Union,  dealing  with  that  subject.  At  the  time  the 
address  was  delivered,  in  February,  1904,  Dr.  Eliot  scored 
the  joint  agreement  system,  pronouncing  it  monopolistic. 
Mr.  Justi  replied  in  an  article  printed  in  FUEL,  and  Dr. 
Eliot  wrote  him  a  letter  in  regard  to  the  reply.  The  purpose 
intended  in  reprinting  the  article  is  to  show  how  the  plan 
is  sometimes  misunderstood  even  by  so  fair  and  eminent 
authority  as  Dr.  Eliot. 

In  his  Boston  speech  the  college  president  said,  among 
other  things : 

"The  plain  tendency  of  the  joint  agreement  is  to  bring 
about  a  junction  of  the  forces  of  labor  and  capital  in  the 
combined  effort  to  raise  prices  and  so  increase  both  wages 
and  profits.  The  ultimate  result  has  been  reached  in  several 
trades  or  industries  in  the  United  States  within  the  last  three 
years." 

Further  along  Dr.  Eliot  said : 

"The  present  tendencies  of  labor  unions  and  employers' 
associations  suggest  strongly  the  expediency  of  establish- 
ing over  them  governmental  inspection  and  control,  and  this 
for  two  reasons : 

"First,  that  both  kind  of  associations  soon  become 
monopolistic,  and, 

"Second,  that  they  are  secret  societies." 

Mr.  Justi,  replying  in  FUEL,  said  he  believed  President 
Eliot's  information  unreliable.  He  further  said  that  since 
the  Pennsylvania-Ohio-Indiana-Illinois  joint  agreement  was 
created  six  years  ago,  no  junction  of  the  forces  of  capital 
and  labor  ever  had  been  formed  or  attempted,  to  raise  prices 
and  so  increase  wages  and  profits.  There  never  had  been 
any  attempt,  he  said,  through  this  joint  agreement,  to  ad- 
vance or  reduce  the  price  of  coal  or  to  regulate  the  output. 
Every  demand  for  an  increase  of  wages  had  been  honestly 

17 


1 8  Papers  and  Addresses 

resisted.  Mr.  Justi  stated  that  the  various  associations  were 
not  secret,  and  that  the  coal  operators  of  the  four  states  were 
competitors. 

"A  monopoly  in  the  bituminous  coal-mining  industry," 
said  Mr.  Justi,  "is  well-nigh  impossible.  This  might  be  ac- 
complished in  part  by  a  consolidation  of  all  the  coal  proper- 
ties. This  is  all  but  impossible,  and  even  if  accomplished 
new  companies  would  quickly  spring  into  life,  coal  lands 
being  plentiful  and  development  neither  very  difficult  nor 
costly.  Agreements  as  to  selling  prices  are  not  effective, 
as  experience  demonstrates." 

In  answer  to  this  article,  President  Eliot  wrote  the  fol- 
lowing letter  to  Mr.  Justi : 

President  Eliot's  Letter. 

Harvard  University, 
Cambridge,  February  26,  1904. 
Mr.  Herman  Justi : 

Dear  Sir:  I  have  just  read  your  article,  entitled  "The 
Harvard  President's  Error,"  and  am  surprised  at  the  strong 
contrast  between  your  infomation  and  mine.  I  have  read 
numerous  joint  agreements  between  labor  unions  and  em- 
ployers' associations,  and  I  have  yet  to  see  one  the  natural 
result  of  which  was  not  a  raising  of  prices  to  the  public 
during  the  prosperity  of  the  industry  involved.  As  a  rule 
they  agree  to  higher  wages,  or  shorter  hours,  or  both.  The 
last  one  I  read  was  a  joint  agreement  between  the  Electrical 
Workers  of  America  and  the  Electrical  Employers  of  Bos- 
ton and  the  vicinity.  It  not  only  put  up  prices  now,  but  it 
agreed  on  a  further  advance  of  the  workmen's  wages  by 
twelve  and  a  half  per  cent  on  the  ist  of  January,  1905. 
You  are  doubtless  familiar  with  the  situation  in  Chicago. 
Do  you  not  observe  there  many  instances  of  the  two  parties 
to  what  is  called  the  "industrial  strife"  joining  hands  against 
the  public? 

With  regard  to  your  statement  concerning  the  employ- 
ers' associations  not  being  secret,  I  think  we  may  seem  to 
differ,  because  we  have  a  different  conception  of  what  a 
secret  society  is.  The  unions  seem  to  me  to  be  all  secret 
societies  in  a  proper  sense.  They  debate  their  policies  in 
secret  session,  and  determine  on  their  acts  in  secret  session. 
Their  acts,  however,  necessarily  become  public  at  a  later 
stage.  Many  of  the  employers'  associations  do  the  same 
things.  They  concert  their  measures  in  secret,  but  their 


Correspondence  with  President  Eliot  19 

measures  necessarily  later  become  public.  I  am  in  posses- 
sion of  the  constitution  of  one  employers'  association,  the 
membership  of  which  is  kept  secret ;  and,  of  course,  all  its 
meetings  are  secret,  and  the  public  knows  nothing  about  the 
association,  except  through  the  public  action  of  its  author- 
ized agent  or  agents.  This  secrecy  is  maintained  under  the 
mistaken  idea  that  the  association  will  be  more  influential 
if  of  unknown  size.  You  seem  to  think  that  an  association 
whose  doings  are  ultimately  public  is  not  a  secret  associa- 
tion. That  is  not  my  use  of  the  term. 

As  to  the  possibility  and  probability  of  "cornering"  all 
the  labor  of  a  large  community,  or,  in  other  words,  creating 
a  monopoly  in  labor,  I  venture  to  refer  you  to  the  experience 
of  San  Francisco. 

I  do  not  admit  that  I  am  in  error  either  in  regard  to  the 
monopolistic  tendency  of  the  joint  agreement,  or  in  regard 
to  the  practical  secrecy  of  all  labor  unions  and  most  em- 
ployers' associations.  Very  truly  yours, 

CHARLES  W.  ELIOT. 

Mr.  Justi's  answer  is  given  below : 

Mr.  Justi's  Answer  to  This  Letter. 

March  28,  1904. 
Dr.  Charles  W.  Eliot, 

Harvard  University,  Cambridge,  Mass. 

My  Dear  Sir :  I  thank  you  for  your  letter  of  February 
26,  received  on  my  return  to  Chicago. 

Permit  me  to  assure  you,  my  dear  Doctor  Eliot,  that  I  do 
not  defend  the  system  of  joint  agreements  because  I  am  op- 
posed to  the  system  of  publicity  which  you  advocate.  I  sim- 
ply seek  to  make  it  clear  that  the  system  of  joint  agreements 
does  not  tend  to  unite  the  forces  of  capital  and  labor  in  order 
to  advance  wages,  or  to  increase  by  artificial  means  the 
profits  of  employers,  at  an  unjust  cost  to  the  public.  I  am 
sufficiently  familiar  with  the  practices  pursued  in  the  great 
industries  of  the  country  in  which  the  system  of  joint  agree- 
ments is  recognized  to  feel  warranted  in  saying  that  a  system 
of  publicity  to  be  conducted  under  some  plan  to  be  deter- 
mined by  our  national  government  cannot  do  any  harm 
whatever  to  that  system,  or  to  the  men  working  under  it. 
On  the  contrary,  it  would  bring  out  clearly  its  advantages, 
and  make  it  more  effective  for  good,  where  already  adopted, 
and  would  insure  its  introduction  among  employers,  where 
it  is  now  ignored. 


2o  Papers  and  Addresses 

I  do  not  believe  that  anything  is  proved  by  the  mere 
fact  that  the  particular  joint  agreements  which  you  have 
read  contain  some  intimation,  or  even  some  express  under- 
standing, on  the  subject  of  future  advances  conditioned 
upon  continued  or  increased  prosperity.  I  do  not  believe 
this  fact  proves  that  the  forces  of  capital  and  labor  are 
uniting  to  advance  wages  in  order  to  increase  profits.  The 
idea  that  an  increase  in  wages  means  at  the  same  time  an 
increase  in  profits  to  the  employer  is,  I  think,  an  erroneous 
one.  An  advance  in  wages  naturally  means  a  reduction  in 
the  percentage  of  profits.  This  is  always  the  case  when  the 
markets  are  weak  or  normal,  and  only  when  the  demand  for 
a  commodity  is  brisk,  or  greater  than  the  ability  to  supply 
it  quickly,  is  this  rule  reversed.  Here  the  increase  of  prices 
is  due  to  the  increased  demand,  and  not  to  the  increase  of 
wages. 

There  can  be  no  objection  to  a  proper  increase  in  wages ; 
in  fact,  no  objection  to  the  highest  wages  consistent  with 
actual  trade  conditions.  In  no  other  way  is  it  possible  to 
distribute  so  equitably  the  wealth  realized  from  the  earnings 
on  the  invested  capital  of  the  country. 

You  say  that  the  joint  agreements  which  you  have  read 
are  numerous  and  that  you  have  yet  to  see  one,  the  natural 
result  of  which  was  not  to  raise  the  prices  to  the  public 
during  the  prosperity  of  the  industry  involved,  and  you 
add:  "As  a  rule  they  agree  to  higher  wages,  or  shorter 
hours,  or  both"?  What  is  the  force  of  your  words,  "the 
natural  result."  Is  this  not  a  confession  that  the  relation 
of  cause  and  effect  between  a  joint  agreement  and  the  in- 
crease of  prices  is  your  own  assumption,  rather  than  the 
actual  purpose  of  the  joint  agreement?  Does  the  joint 
agreement  cause  the  prosperity  of  the  industry,  and  thus 
connive  at  an  increase  of  prices?  If  not,  what  is  there  so 
grievously  wrong  about  this  plan  of  raising  wages  or  prices 
during  the  prosperity  of  the  industry  involved?  Certainly, 
during  a  period  of  adversity,  when  times  are  hard  and  de- 
pression is  general,  such  a  course  would  be  ill-advised.  I 
can  only  conclude  that  if  you  oppose  advances  in  wages, 
improved  conditions,  and  shorter  hours,  when  conditions 
of  trade  are  favorable,  then  you  must  be  opposed  to  these 
things  at  all  times. 

You  direct  my  attention  to  the  joint  agreement  between 
the  Electrical  Workers  of  America  and  the  Electrical  Em- 
ployers of  Boston  and  vicinity,  to  prove  that  wages  not  only 


Correspondence  with  President  Eliot.  21 

are  put  up  at  present,  but  that  it  is  agreed  that  a  further 
advance  shall  be  given  to  the  workmen  on  Jan.  i,  1905.  My 
knowledge  of  industrial  conflicts  or  contentions  in  general 
would  lead  me  to  surmise  that  a  demand  had  been  made  by 
the  Electrical  Workers  for  an  advance  of  25  per  cent,  to 
continue  for  two  years,  and  that  the  employers,  while  oppos- 
ing so  large  an  advance,  finally  agreed  to  I2.y2,  per  cent  ad- 
vance the  first  year  and  12^  per  cent  the  second  year,  as  a 
compromise.  If  this  is  true,  then,  under  this  system  of 
joint  agreements,  the  employer,  in  not  yielding  to  the  de- 
mand of  the  laborers,  protected  the  public  by  saving  it  a 
further  advance  of  12^2  per  cent  for  that  one  year. 

In  answer  to  the  question :  "Do  you  not  observe  in  Chi- 
cago many  instances  of  the  two  parties  to  what  is  called  the 
'industrial  strife'  joining  hands  against  the  public?"  I  beg 
to  say  that  I  have  known  of  two  instances  where  this  was 
urged  to  be  the  case. 

One  instance  grew  out  of  the  agreement  between  the 
electrical  contractors  and  workers,  and  that  agreement 
brought  on  a  prosecution  in  the  courts  of  Chicago,  and,  as 
a  result,  a  heavy  fine  was  imposed  upon  the  officers  of  the 
Electrical  Workers. 

The  other  instance  is  where  such  a  charge  was  brought 
against  the  Sheet  Metal  Contractors  of  Chicago.  A  suit  was 
brought  by  a  company  of  contractors  in  the  same  line  of 
business,  and  this  case  is  now  pending  in  the  courts  of  Cook 
County.  There  may  be  other  cases,  but  I  do  not  know  of 
them. 

I  do  not  say  that  it  is  impossible  for  the  forces  of  capi- 
tal and  labor  to  unite  and  thereafter  impose  burdens  upon 
the  public,  but  I  do  say  it  is  difficult,  because  the  public  and 
its  lawyers  are  too  wideawake  to  overlook  so  flagrant  a  vio- 
lation of  the  law.  Our  state's  attorneys  are  on  the  lookout 
for  just  such  cases.  To  discover  and  punish  the  offenders, 
raises  such  officials  in  public  favor,  and  to  that  extent  in- 
sures their  re-election. 

So  far  as  the  larger  industries  of  the  country  are  con- 
cerned, it  is  utterly  impossible  to  form  such  a  combination 
as  you  suggest.  This  would  be  true,  for  example,  of  the 
coal-mining  industry,  in  which  400,000  men  are  employed; 
the  maritime  interests,  employing  as  many,  if  not  more, 
men,  and  the  railroad  interests,  employing  vastly  more. 
Nor  do  I  think  a  similar  combination  could  be  formed  be- 
tween the  forces  in  the  iron  and  steel  industry,  in  the  coal- 


22  Papers  and  Addresses 

oil  industry,  or  in  the  printing  business.  Here  we  have  the 
largest  industries,  employing  the  largest  bodies  of  organ- 
ized labor  (the  Standard  Oil  Company  perhaps  excepted), 
and  most  of  them  making  joint  agreements  to  determine 
the  pay  and  the  conditions  of  labor,  and  in  not  any  of  these 
do  the  forces  of  capital  and  labor  join  hands  against  the 
public. 

As  to  the  possibility  of  cornering  all  the  labor  in  a  large 
community,  you  refer  me  to  the  experience  of  San  Fran- 
cisco. 

Recently  I  have  had  a  conversation  with  Mr.  Ray  Stan- 
nard  Baker,  associate  editor  of  McClure's  Magazine,  on  this 
subject.  Mr.  Baker  published  an  article  in  McClure's  for 
February,  which  gives  a  very  graphic  description  of  the 
situation  in  San  Francisco.  Mr.  Baker  concedes  that  the 
corner  in  labor  established  in  San  Francisco  did  not  origi- 
nate in  the  existence  of  joint  agreements.  When  the  labor 
organizations  of  San  Francisco  besought  the  employers 
of  labor  to  meet  them  in  joint  conference  with  a  view  of 
making  contracts,  the  employers  refused,  and  to  their  re- 
fusal added  the  announcement  that  they  would  resist  or- 
ganized labor  to  the  bitter  end  and  seek  to  crush  it.  A  con- 
flict was  the  result,  and  organized  labor  triumphed  over  the 
so-called  capital,  or  employer,  class.  Its  defeat  was  so 
thorough  that  the  subsequent  combinations  between  capital 
and  labor  from  which  the  public  now  suffers,  should  be 
called  "articles  of  surrender,"  instead  of  "joint  agreements." 
We  have  found  reasons  to  expect  that  the  San  Francisco 
conditions  will  neither  be  prolonged  nor  repeated  elsewhere 
in  America. 

As  far  as  my  personal  knowledge  goes,  in  those  indus- 
tries where  the  system  of  joint  agreements  has  been  in 
force,  the  membership  is  publicly  known  and  there  is  abso- 
lutely no  secrecy,  save  in  so  far  as  the  business  of  any  ex- 
ecutive body  is  properly  private,  and  about  which  the  public 
need  not  be  informed.  The  senate  of  the  United  States, 
for  example,  discusses  some  of  its  gravest  matters  in  secret 
session,  but  it  is  not,  for  that  reason,  a  secret  organization. 
I  take  pleasure  in  sending  you  a  list  of  our  members,  a  copy 
of  our  constitution,  and  the  printed  proceedings  of  our  joint 
conferences. 

That  the  system  of  joint  agreements  is  not  intended 
merely  to  advance  wages  to  men  belonging  to  labor  organi- 
zations, has  to  some  extent  been  disproved  in  the  recent 


Correspondence  with  President  Eliot  23 

action  of  the  coal  miners  in  the  bituminous  fields.  By  a 
popular  vote,  they  decided  to  accept  a  reduction.  Their 
leaders  first  set  before  them  the  fact  that  trade  conditions  re- 
quired it.  They  voted  to  accept  the  reduction  by  a  popular 
majority  of  over  33,000  votes,  in  a  total  vote  of  170,000. 

It  is  true  that  any  reduction  in  wages  is  distasteful  to 
labor  and  is  resisted,  just  as  it  is  true  that  employers  do 
not  like  to  be  importuned  continuously  to  advance  wages, 
or  great  industries  do  not  like  to  accept  any  reduction  in 
the  price  of  the  products  of  labor  that  would  cause  a  re- 
duction in  their  profits. 

The  system  of  joint  agreements,  I  contend,  not  only  has 
been  of  great  advantage  to  the  employe  class,  but  it  has 
been  of  great  advantage  to  the  employer  class  also,  and  it 
has  been  of  even  still  greater  advantage  to  the  public.  Under 
that  system,  ruinous  strikes  have  been  prevented  and  sta- 
bility of  values  has  been  insured.  This  boon  could  not 
have  been  obtained  in  any  other  way.  It  is,  I  maintain,  a 
system  that  has  been  of  inestimable  value  to  us  all,  but  the 
greatest  benefit  is  yet  to  follow,  when  once  the  business  idea 
is  correctly  impressed  upon  the  minds  of  the  workers.  As 
soon  as  this  is  accomplished,  just  so  soon  will  they  under- 
stand, not  only  their  rights,  but  their  duties  and  responsi- 
bilities. 

With  great  respect,  I  am, 

Very  truly  yours, 

HERMAN'  JUSTI. 


THE  BASIS  OF  AGREEMENT 


To  make  clear  to  the  public  the  basis  upon  which  joint 
trade  agreements  rest  in  the  bituminous  coal  mining  indus- 
try of  the  country,  I  prepared  a  series  of  resolutions  which 
were  presented  by  me  in  behalf  of  the  Illinois  Coal  Opera- 
tors' Association  at  the  joint  interstate  conference  of  coal 
mine  operator*  and  coal  miners  at  Indianapolis,  Indiana, 
February  8,  1902,  when  they  were  unanimously  adopted. 
These  resolutions  follow : 

Preamble    and     Resolution. 

Whereas,  The  American  people  is  deeply  concerned  and 
profoundly  interested  in  the  wise  and  correct  solution  of  the 
labor  problem,  and  is  vitally  interested  in  seeing  a  problem 
materially  affecting  all  classes  in  our  country  settled  by 
peaceable,  reasonable  and  wise  methods,  and  not  by  force  or 
threats  of  force,  by  imposing  hardships  or  threatening  to  im- 
pose hardships  upon  the  masses  of  the  people ;  and 

Whereas,  Thoughtful  and  observing  people  everywhere 
are  watching  with  profound  interest  and  deep  solicitude  the 
joint  movement  of  coal  mine  operators  and  coal  miners 
in  the  central  coal  mining  states  of  the  Union,  and  have 
shown  in  many  ways  and  on  many  occasions  a  desire  for  a 
clear  and  explicit  definition  of  the  joint  movement  inaugu- 
rated by  the  coal  miners  and  coal  mine  operators,  and  now 
in  vogue  in  many  of  the  coal  producing  states ;  and 

Whereas,  Such  a  definition  seems  necessary  to  create  a 
fair  and  healthy  public  sentiment  as  a  basis  for  a  just  pub- 
lic opinion ;  therefore,  be  it 

Resolved,  That  the  coal  miners  and  the  coal  mine  opera- 
tors in  joint  convention  assembled  hereby  declare: 

1st.  That  this  joint  movement  is  founded,  and  that  it  is 
to  rest,  upon  correct  business  ideas,  competitive  equality, 
and  upon  well  recognized  principles  of  justice. 

2d.  That,  recognizing  the  contract  relations  existing 
between  employer  and  employe,  we  believe  strikes  and  lock- 
outs, disputes  and  friction,  can  be  generally  avoided  by 
meeting  in  joint  convention  and  by  entering  into  trade 
agreements  for  specified  periods  of  time. 


The  Basis  of  Agreement  25 

3d.  That  we  recognize  the  sacredness  and  binding 
nature  of  contracts  and  agreements  thus  entered  into,  and 
are  pledged  in  honor  to  keep  inviolate  such  contracts  and 
agreements  made  by  and  between  a  voluntary  organization, 
having  no  standing  in  court,  on  the  one  hand,  and  a  merely 
collective  body  of  business  men  doing  business  individually 
or  in  corporate  capacity  on  the  other,  each  of  the  latter  class 
having  visible  and  tangible  assets  subject  to  execution. 

4.  That  we  deprecate,  discourage  and  condemn  any 
departure  whatever  from  the  letter  or  spirit  of  such  trade 
agreements  or  contracts,  unless  such  departure  be  deemed 
by  all  parties  in  interest  for  the  welfare  of  the  coal  mining 
industry  and  for  the  public  good  as  well,  and  that  such  de- 
parture is  first  definitely,  specifically  and  mutually  agreed 
upon  by  all  parties  in  interest. 

5th.  Such  contracts  or  agreements  having  been  entered 
into,  we  consider  ourselves  severally  and  collectively  bound 
in  honor  to  carry  them  out  in  good  faith  in  letter  and  spirit, 
and  are  so  pledged  to  use  our  influence  and  authority  to 
enforce  these  contracts  and  agreements,  the  more  so  since 
they  rest  in  the  main  upon  mutual  confidence  as  their  basis. 

The  resolutions  as  originally  prepared  by  me  contained  a 
sixth  clause  which  was  not  adopted,  but  it  is  of  interest  as 
showing  one  really  great  need  in  the  operation  of  the  pres- 
ent system  of  joint  trade  agreements.  This  clause  was  as 
follows : 

Confidently  believing  the  system  of  joint  agreements 
under  a  joint  movement  of  employers  and  employes  to 
be  a  wise  and  safe  system,  if  honestly  and  faithfully  ad- 
hered to,  and  to  perpetuate  and  perfect  that  system,  if  pos- 
sible, in  the  territory  included  in  the  interstate  convention, 
we,  the  coal  miners  and  coal  mine  operators  representing 
the  bituminous  coal  mining  industry  in  this  interstate  con- 
vention, declare  ourselves  ready  to  provide  for  the  settle- 
ment of  disputes  or  differences  arising  under  our  interstate 
agreements,  by  the  formation  of  a  board  of  referees  to 
which  such  differences  may  be  carried,  in  an  extremity,  for 
final  adjustment. 


THE  OPEN  SHOP  vs. 

THE  CLOSED  SHOP 


A  feature  of  the  Chautauqua  at  Streator,  111.,  Saturday, 
July  8,  1905,  was  a  discussion  of  the  following  question : 

Resolved,  That  the  "closed  shop"  is  not  for  the  best  inter- 
est of  trade-unionism,  and  that  it  is  un-American  and  sub- 
versive of  the  principles  of  liberty  on  which  this  republic  is 
founded. 

The  affirmative  of  the  proposition  was  taken  by  Herman 
Justi,  Commissioner  of  the  Illinois  Coal  Operators'  Asso- 
ciation, and  the  negative  by  E.  M.  Davis,  ex-president  of 
the  Streator  Trades  Council.  Mr.  Justi's  address  was  as 
follows : 

Mr.  Justi's  Address. 

The  leading  members  of  labor  organizations,  are,  as  a 
rule,  the  uncompromising  champions  of  the  "closed  shop  as 
a  principle  of  unionism,"  a  principle  which  they  insist  shall 
be  recognized  by  employers  of  labor.  There  are,  however, 
a  few  labor  leaders  (shining  exceptions)  who  will  admit 
that  they  see  the  folly  of  insisting  upon  the  recognition  of 
the  "closed  shop"  and  the  danger  to  the  cause  of  organized 
labor  by  persistently  opposing  the  "open  shop."  There  are 
those  among  the  employer  class  who  favor  what  they  call 
the  "open  shop"  because  they  are  unalterably  and  uncom- 
promisingly opposed  to  organized  labor.  These  employers 
want  the  "open  shop"  in  order  to  make  it  a  "closed  shop" 
against  union  labor.  Here  then  we  have  two  intensely  hos- 
tile forces.  On  the  other  hand  there  are  those  of  the  em- 
ployer class  who  favor  organized  labor,  but  who,  at  the 
same  time,  oppose  the  "closed  shop  as  a  principle  of  union- 
ism," for  the  same  reason  that  they  oppose  the  "open  shop" 
as  a  means  merely  of  destroying  unionism.  This  class  be- 
lieves in  ignoring  both  as  "principles"  and  in  adopting 
whichever  of  them  is  found  to  be  best  in  practice,  or  which- 
ever promises  the  best  practical  results.  Here  then  we  have 

*An  address  delivered  at  the  Streator,  111.,  Chautauqua  Saturday 
afternoon,  July  8,  1905. 

26 


Open  Shop  vs.  Closed  Shop  27 

a  "third"  or  conservative,  practical,  business  class.  All  of 
these  classes  declare  themselves  to  be  the  friends  of  labor; 
and,  in  speaking  of  the  "open"  or  "closed  shop,"  profess  to 
speak  as  the  laborer's  unselfish  friends. 

The  Laborer  Who  Will  Succeed. 

That  the  laborer  is  best  off  who  does  not  wholly  rely 
upon  either  the  employer  or  the  labor  leader,  but  depends  in 
the  main  upon  his  own  strong  arm,  his  superior  skill,  his 
good  common  sense,  and  his  unswerving  determination  to 
succeed,  is  undeniable.  Let  the  laborer  have  strong  faith, 
if  he  will,  in  the  good  intentions  of  the  employer,  and  en- 
tire confidence  in  the  honesty  and  wisdom  of  the  labor 
leader  if  he  must,  but  let  him  not  rely  too  unreservedly 
upon  the  disinterestedness  of  either.  Employer  and  labor 
leader,  as  a  rule,  as  is  perhaps  natural,  think  of  themselves 
first.  Only  that  laborer,  therefore,  will  achieve  real  success 
who  relies  chiefly  upon  his  own  skill  and  industry.  Every- 
thing else  can  be  a  helpful  agency  merely,  but  at  the  same 
time  an  agency  neither  so  trifling  as  to  be  ignored  nor  so 
great  as  to  be  wholly  depended  upon. 

I  am  beginning,  in  this  way,  my  discussion  of  the  un- 
ion's "closed  shop"  because  I  wish  to  clear  away  at  the  start 
some  misconceptions  or  uncandid  arguments.  I  want  to 
make  my  own  position  distinct.  I  want  all  who  follow  my 
line  of  argument  to  scrutinize  my  position  and  weigh  my 
reasons  and  then  reach  their  own  conclusions,  fairly  decid- 
ing whether  my  principles  are  unselfish  and  sound.  It  is 
true  that  very  many  advocates  of  the  "open  shop"  are 
opposed  to  the  "closed  shop",  not  because  they  know  or 
desire  what  is  best  for  all  concerned,  but  only  because  they 
think,  or  have  been  led  to  believe,  that  it  will  be  best  for 
themselves.  For  precisely  the  same  selfish  reasons  most 
champions  of  the  "closed  shop"  oppose  the  "open  shop." 
What  is  best  for  the  common  good  of  society  is  scarcely 
ever  considered  by  the  noisy  advocates  of  either  party. 
They  view  the  whole  matter  from  the  standpoint  of  im- 
mediate and  personal  gain.  They  rarely,  if  ever,  view  the 
question  from  its  economic  side  and  yet  only  when  it  is 
viewed  from  the  economic  side  can  we  determine  which  is 
for  the  general  and  permanent  good;  and  only  when  the 
community  is  duly  considered  need  we  expect  the  respect- 
ive rights  of  the  employer  class  and  the  employe  class  to 
be  accuratelv  determined. 


28  Papers  and  Addresses 

It  must  now  be  plain  to  my  hearers  that  there  are  two 
"closed  shops" — one  that  is  "open"  to  union  labor  only, 
and  the  other  that  is  "open"  to  non-union  labor  only. 
I  am  opposed  to  both;  but,  in  the  part  assigned  to  me  in 
this  discussion,  I  am  expected  to  give  my  reasons  for  op- 
posing the  "union's  closed  shop." 

The  Union's  Closed  Shop. 

This  is  easily  done,  but  at  the  same  time  I  wish  to  show 
my  hostility  to  the  employer's  "closed  shop,"  as  well  as  my 
decided  preference  for  the  common  sense,  practical  "open 
shop"  in  which  there  is  promise  of  a  fair  deal  for  every 
man,  woman  and  child  regardless  of  whether  rich  or 
poor,  union  or  non-union,  native  or  foreign-born,  white 
or  black.  Both  "closed  shop"  systems  as  labor  employing 
agencies,  are  almost  certain  to  favor  monopoly  and  to  prac- 
tice discrimination  and  cruelty.  And  yet  an  emergency 
may  arise  when  the  "employer's  closed  shop"  is  the  only 
alternative  for  the  employer.  Such  an  emergency  arises 
when  the  employer  is  rudely  ordered  to  employ  only  union 
men.  On  the  other  hand,  it  may  also  happen  that  the 
"union's  closed  shop"  has  proved  itself  desirable  for  both 
employer  and  laborer,  such  being  the  case  when  the  em- 
ployer is  properly  consulted,  his  rights  respected  and  his 
interests  well  subserved. 

The  terms  "open  shop"  and  "closed  shop,"  as  com- 
monly employed,  it  will  be  seen  are  therefore  confusing, 
and  this  confusion  arises,  as  I  have  endeavored  to  show, 
out  of  a  disposition  or  determination  on  the  one  side  to 
make  the  "closed  shop"  a  "principle  of  unionism,"  and  on 
the  other  side  to  make  the  "open  shop"  a  refuge  and  bul- 
wark for  non-unionism.  Here  is  where  that  part  of  the 
employer  class  which  is  favorable  to  organized  labor  parts 
company  with  both,  and  declares  itself  in  favor  of  the 
common  sense,  fair  for  all,  genuine  "open  shop"  already 
described. 

No  man  with  proper  regard  for  the  truth,  will  deny 
that  the  employer  class  is  often  denied  the  rights  guaran- 
teed to  it  under  the  laws  of  the  land  by  certain  practices  of 
labor  organizations.  Though  a  patient  and  long  suffering 
people,  Americans  will  ultimately  turn  upon  and  crush 
their  oppressors,  no  matter  whether  their  oppressors  hap- 
pen to  be  labor  tyrants  or  monopolistic  monsters.  Let  us 
admit  all  that  is  fair,  in  order  that  labor  may  organize  not 


THE 

I   UNIVERSIT 

:    s>. .    Open  Shop  vs.  Closed  Shop  29 

only  to  prevent  a  reduction  in  wages  to  the  starvation  point, 
but  to  advance  them  to  the  highest  point  that  commercial 
conditions  will  permit ;  to  secure  reasonable  hours  of  labor ; 
to  obtain  the  best  possible  conditions  under  which  the 
laborer  is  to  work;  and  to  have  laws  enacted  to  increase 
the  comforts  and  protect  the  life  and  health  of  the  worker. 
But  this  is  as  far  as  we  should  go,  and  we  should  prevent  by 
all  honorable  means  every  interference  with  individual  rights 
and  liberties  of  the  citizen;  undue  influence  in  securing 
unfair  legislation ;  methods  and  systems  that  ignore  econ- 
omic laws;  and  the  practice  of  intimidation  and  force.  In 
fact  it  should  not  be  necessary  for  any  one  save  the  union 
itself  to  prevent  this,  for  to  continue  such  practices  con- 
stitutes in  itself  the  greatest  danger  to  the  perpetuation  of 
decent,  respectable  organized  labor. 

For  despite  the  wish  and  the  endeavor  of  the  unions  to 
have  it  otherwise,  at  times,  we  must  not  overlook  the  in- 
herent and  natural  right  of  individual  liberty  and  the 
right  of  freedom  to  contract,  both  on  the  part  of  the  em- 
ployer and  the  employe,  whether  that  employe  be  union  or 
non-union.  Wherever  there  is  absolute  freedom  of  con- 
tract and  healthy  competition,  there  is  greater  progress 
made  in  skill  and  in  economy  than  where  conditions  of  la- 
bor and  time  of  labor  are  always  to  be  fixed  by  a  union 
that  looks  out  mainly  for  the  comfort  of  its  own  members 
and  that  shares  no  part  of  the  losses  which  may  result  to 
the  individual  employer.  Often  it  is  the  case  that  labor 
leaders,  not  being  well  trained  and  far-seeing  men,  do  not 
give  sufficient  consideration  to  the  danger  that  if  they  make 
labor  too  expensive  and  too  unprogressive,  we  shall  fail 
to  keep  up  with  freer  labor  in  other  countries.  The  loss  to 
our  whole  country  on  this  account,  while  falling  upon  all 
of  us  alike,  may  not  be  anticipated  and  thus  may  not  be 
provided  against  until  too  late. 

The  "closed  shop"  would  not  be  an  issue  if  the  em- 
plovers  as  a  class  and  the  laborers  as  a  class  were  equally 
well  organized  and  when  both  the  employer  and  employe 
classes  are  equally  well  organized,  the  "closed  shop"  will 
often  be  preferred.  Until  this  is  the  case,  however,  the 
"closed  shop,"  if  declared  to  be  the  only  system  under 
which  the  employer  class  is  to  recognize  the  emplove  class 
will  violate  all  economic  laws  and  the  interest  of  the  gen- 
eral public  will  not  be  subserved.  And  yet  the  "open  shop" 
of  the  employer  will  be  successfully  opposed  by  the  unionist 


30  Papers  and  Addresses 

just  as  long  as  the  employer  class  is  not  organized,  or  so 
long  as  it  is  only  half  organized. 

In  the  class  for  which  I  speak,  there  is  no  great  hos- 
tility to  the  "closed  shop"  as  such,  and  provided  the  condi- 
tions are  fair  and  just,  but  the  proper  conditions  do  not 
now  exist.  The  fact  that  they  do  not  exist  is  made  plain 
by  the  demand  of  labor  leaders  that  the  "closed  shop"  be 
recognized  as  a  "principle  of  unionism."  The  proper  con- 
ditions, let  me  say,  will  never  exist  until  the  organization 
of  the  two  great  interests  to  this  contest  are  equal  in 
strength  and  thus  able  to  command  each  other's  fear  and 
respect.  Then  the  terrors  of  the  union's  "closed  shop" 
and  the  employer's  "closed  shop"  will  melt  away,  because 
then  neither  can  unduly  impose  upon  the  other, 

An  Economic  Question  Purely. 

The  artificial  but  ever  present  barriers  built  up  through 
centuries  of  industrial  injustice  and  conflict  removed,  the 
question  of  an  "open  shop"  or  a  "closed  shop"  should  be  a 
simple  one  indeed  and  altogether  easy  enough  to  answer — 
just  as  simple,  it  would  seem  as  any  other  plain  business 
proposition,  for  the  question  itself  is  a  purely  economic 
one  and  affects  alike  every  individual  and  class  in  the  com- 
munity. 

Failing  to  deal  with  it  as  an  economic  question,  we 
oppose  natural  laws,  and  natural  laws  cannot  be  disregard- 
ed even  by  labor  unions  or  the  citizens'  alliances.  As  mem- 
bers of  the  same  heterogeneous  society,  we  cannot  injure 
a  part  of  it  by  a  false  economic  step  without  injuriously 
affecting  the  rest.  Economic  laws  and  natural  laws  must 
be  obeyed. 

Any  unnatural  advantage  obtained  by  capital  at  the  ex- 
pense of  labor  affects  both  of  them,  and  it  also  affects  the 
community,  since  it  is  upon  the  earnings  of  labor  that  busi- 
ness activity  and  general  prosperity  depend.  Equally  so 
any  unnatural  advantage  obtained  by  labor  at  the  expense 
of  the  employer  will  injuriously  affect  all  of  us.  This 
should  be  plain  to  see,  for  thus  competitive  or  commercial 
conditions  are  disturbed  and  business  activity  halts;  be- 
cause then  we  are  no  longer  tempting  the  buyers  of  the 
world  with  our  superior  goods  and  advantageous  prices. 
When  we  no  longer  tempt  the  watchful,  wide-awake  buyer, 
we  are  certain  to  "clip  the  wings  of  commerce"  and  close 
to  ourselves  the  markets  of  the  world.  Then  we  are  cer- 


Open  Shop  vs.  Closed  Shop  31 

tain  to  have  a  "closed  market"  as  the  price  of  a  "closed 
shop." 

Our  Commercial  Rivals. 

The  United  States  no  longer  stands  alone  as  the  one 
wide-awake  industrial  nation.  Its  rivals  in  the  past  two 
decades  have  multiplied.  Germany  by  imitating  American 
methods  and  American  wares  has  become  a  rival  we  must 
dread.  England,  which  was  long  the  commercial  mistress 
of  the  world  is  being  aroused  by  German  advancement. 
The  Boer  war  in  South  Africa  has  opened  to  the  world 
the  opportunities  presented  for  the  adventurous  business 
man.  Japan's  recent  triumphs  reveal  to  us  the  possibilities 
of  that  wonderful  people.  Depend  upon  it,  whatever  war 
indemnity  Russia  pays  to  Japan  will  be  applied  in  a  man- 
ner that  is  most  certain  to  insure  Japan's  industrial  great- 
ness. Russia's  humiliation  and  defeat,  and  her  loss  in 
position  as  one  of  the  ranking  powers  of  the  world 
will  cause  a  complete  revolution  in  the  methods  of  that 
great  empire  and  the  very  necessities  of  the  situation 
will  compel  an  enlightened  and  aggressive  course.  Thus 
we  shall  soon  find  ourselves  confronted  with  commercial 
rivals  that  are  not  to  be  despised,  and  the  high  position  we 
now  occupy  can  remain  secure  so  long  only  as  we  observe 
correct  economic  laws  and  conditions,  and  continue  to 
prove  to  the  world  the  superiority  of  our  labor  both  in  point 
of  industry  and  skill. 

There  is,  therefore,  only  one  reasonable,  logical  posi- 
tion that  we  can  occupy;  there  is  only  one  correct  conclu- 
sion that  we  can  reach,  and  that  is  that  the  employer  shall 
choose  his  employes  only  on  business  grounds,  employ  only 
union  men,  or  only  non-union  men,  or  some  of  both,  as  the 
needs  and  opportunities  of  his  work  may  determine. 

To  determine  whom  he  will  employ  he  shall  ask  himself 
— and  the  only  question  a  broad-minded,  able  business  man 
can  fairly  ask  himself,  is — which  will  give  the  best  work 
and  the  maximum  of  work  for  the  highest  wages  which 
trade  or  competitive  conditions  will  permit  him  to  pay? 
That  seems  to  me  rational — it  is  certainly  common  sense — 
it  is  justice  to  all  concerned.  It  does  seem  the  practical 
view  because  the  buyer  does  not  care  whether  the  goods 
he  buys  are  union  or  non-union  made;  or  whether  they 
are  made  in  an  "open"  or  a  "closed  shop." 


32  Papers  and  Addresses 

What  the  Public  Demands. 

What  the  public  wants  and  what  the  public  is  ultimately 
going  to  have  is  the  best  quality  of  goods  at  the  lowest 
prices.  It  does  not  even  stop  to  ask  if  the  goods  it  buys 
yield  a  profit  to  the  employer  or  fair  wages  to  the  worker. 
It  does  not  care  much  and  its  indifference  is  not  surpris- 
ing, for  its  opinion  is  never  consulted. 

The  public,  unfortunately,  is  only  considered  when  its 
sympathy  and  influences  seem  necessary  to  the  cause  of 
one  side  or  the  other  of  some  bitter  industrial  conflict. 
If  there  were  due  consideration  for  the  rights  of  the  pub- 
lic— and  in  the  term  public  there  is  embraced,  of  course, 
the  individual  members  of  the  employer  and  employe 
classes — less  would  be  heard  of  wars  and  rumors  of  wars 
in  the  industrial  world. 

It  should  be  a  very  simple  matter,  as  already  observed, 
to  decide  at  the  proper  time,  whether  it  shall  be  an  "open" 
or  a  "closed  shop,"  for  it  can  very  easily  be  either,  under 
proper  conditions,  since  the  public  is  ready  to  give  its  ad- 
herence to  whichever  produces  the  best  goods  on  the  most 
equitable  terms. 

It  does  not,  as  I  have  said,  make  the  slightest  difference 
to  the  public  whether  it  is  buying  union  or  non-union 
goods — goods  made  in  an  "open"  or  a  "closed  shop" — so 
long  as  the  public  is  getting  the  best  goods  for  the  least 
money;  and  this  is  not  possible  under  a  false  economic 
system.  The  public  hates  monopoly  however  obtained 
whether  by  a  corner  on  labor  or  on  the  products  of  labor 
— unless  it  has  a  share  in  it. 

This  fair  demand  of  the  public  should  entail  no  hard- 
ship upon  the  union  if  the  many  claims  of  the  union  can  be 
supported  by  the  facts  and  fair  argument. 

The  Closed  Shop  Argument. 

The  advocates  of  the  "union's  closed  shop"  for  ex- 
ample, present  among  other  reasons  for  its  adoption  as  a 
system  of  employment  and  its  recognition  as  a  "principle 
of  unionism,"  the  claim  that  the  union  embraces  the  most 
skilled  workmen. 

These  advocates  also  insist  that  they  want  the  "union's 
closed  shop"  because  they  can  carry  out  their  agreements. 

"Recognize,"  they  say,  "as  a  system  of  employment  and 
as  a  principle  of  unionism  the  'closed  shop,'  and  conditions 
will  be  ideal." 


Open  Shop  vs.  Closed  Shop  33 

If  these  contentions  are  true  to  whom  would  the  benefits 
most  certainly  and  readily  inure? 

That  man  is  either  too  stupid  to  be  taken  seriously,  or 
too  untruthful  to  be  respected  who  would  undertake  to 
say  that  the  employer  is  not  the  first  to  be  pleased  and 
benefited  by  a  system  that  will  certainly  give  him  the  most 
skilled  labor — the  thoroughly  honest  laborer  who  respects 
his  contractual  relations,  and  who  ever  assures  him  of  ideal 
conditions. 

We  are  told  that  the  employer  is  supremely  selfish,  that 
he  wants  everything  and  the  best  of  everything  he  can  get ; 
that  he  thinks  of  himself  first,  last  and  all  the  time.  Ad- 
mitting this  to  be  so,  if  the  claim  for  unionism  is  true, 
would  he  not  get  everything  he  could  desire?  It  is  the 
limit  of  absurdity  to  make  such  a  claim  for  unionism,  and 
it  is  the  greatest  injury  to  the  cause  of  organized  labor  it- 
self to  thus  offend  a  great  people's  fair  intelligence.  Such 
a  course  not  only  keeps  the  opponents  of  unionism  from 
recognizing  it;  it  discourages  and  disgusts  its  best  friends 
among  the  employer  class  and  in  the  community  at  large. 

Has  Labor  a  Fair  Chance? 

Laborers  are  often  heard  to  say  that  they  do  not  have 
a  fair  chance.  Individual  laborers  in  great  aggregations 
do  not  have  a  fair  chance,  we  must  admit,  but  it  cannot  be 
truthfully  said  that  laborers  belonging  to  a  powerful  union 
have  not  an  equal  chance  with  non-union  laborers  and  they 
have  a  better  chance  than  the  employer  class  to  get  an  im- 
partial hearing  to  win  the  public  to  its  side.  There  was  a 
time  when  great  prejudice  existed  against  the  unions,  and 
there  is  still  in  some  quarters  great  prejudice  against  them, 
but  generally  speaking  prejudice  against  the  unions  exist 
only  where  it  is  based  upon  knowledge  possessed  of  certain 
methods  and  practices  countenanced  by  labor  organiza- 
tions, but  by  nobody  else. 

There  was  a  time  when  organized  labor  had  no  alterna- 
tive, possibly,  and  it  was  therefore  compelled  to  resort  to 
drastic  measures  to  achieve  success.  It  was  then  some- 
thing strange  and  to  be  feared.  It  had  few  friends  among 
the  wealthy  or  among  the  influential  of  our  land  and  there- 
fore it  had  to  fight  its  way  to  recognition ;  it  had  to  fight 
not  only  for  success,  but  for  its  life;  and  just  what  methods 
it  employed  need  not  be  told. 

In  recent  years,  though,  it  has  had  its  friends,  some  of 


34  Papers  and  Addresses 

them  friends  from  conviction  and  others  from  interest; 
and  while  we  can  in  a  measure  forgive  the  means  by  which 
organized  labor  at  first  won  recognition,  we  cannot  con- 
tinue to  condone  such  a  course  when  such  a  course  is  no 
longer  necessary.  *  It  is  not  only  not  necessary,  but  such  a 
system  can  no  longer  win,  because  force  has  invited  resist- 
ance— resistance  bitter  and  determined  from  a  foe  that  is 
rapidly  becoming  formidable,  almost  irresistible. 

The  American  people,  it  may  be  depended  upon,  will 
not  long  submit  to  a  system  of  force.  They  will  recognize 
every  reasonable  right  of  every  class  in  the  community  and 
of  every  individual ;  they  may  even  go  too  far  in  their  de- 
sire to  be  generous,  but  they  will  be  found  as  fierce  in 
their  enmity  as  they  were  previously  helpful  and  forgiving 
in  their  friendship,  if  too  deeply  offended  and  too  grossly 
outraged. 

Now  organized  labor  need  ask  favors  from  no  one,  for 
the  reason  that  it  is  already  recognized  by  the  wealthy 
class  and  by  the  influential  men  and  women  of  the  land.  It 
can  win  the  respect  of  all  Americans ;  but  it  can  lose  every- 
thing by  resorting  to  barbaric  warfare.  Its  leaders,  as  we 
well  know,  can  sit  down  at  table  with  the  President  of  the 
United  States  or  they  can  appear  upon  the  same  platform 
or  at  the  same  banquet  board  with  senators  and  railway 
presidents,  with  merchant  princes  and  captains  of  industry, 
with  noted  preachers  and  distinguished  prelates ;  not  to  be 
embarrassed  by  any  criticism  of  their  methods,  but  on  the 
contrary  to  hear  their  praises  sounded  and  their  organ- 
ization commended.  Once  they  were  not  heard, — now  we 
gladly  listen;  for  the  organization  of  labor  to-day  is  very 
strong  and  it  has  well  performed  great  things.  If,  there- 
fore, it  cannot  win  in  a  fair  field  where  it  has  every  ad- 
vantage without  resorting  to  trickery  or  brutality,  it  has 
no  right  to  win  at  all  and  the  American  people,  jealous  of 
their  good  name,  will  see  to  it  that  it  does  not  win. 

It  is  because  of  the  great  good  it  has  done  to  the  labor- 
ing class  and  because  of  the  really  great  benefit  it  has  con- 
ferred upon  the  employer  class,  though  the  latter  may  be 
unwilling  to  admit  it — that  it  has  the  right  to  a  fair  chance. 
Indeed  it  has  a  fair  chance,  and  in  many  respects  it  has  a 
better  chance  to  secure  the  good  opinion  and  the  good  will 
and  support  of  the  public  than  has  the  employer  class.  It 
cannot  be  denied  that  the  employers  of  labor,  be  they  ever 
so  honest,  ever  so  devoted  to  the  interests  of  their  employes, 


Open  Shop  vs.  Closed  Shop  35 

ever  so  public  spirited,  ever  so  ready  to  make  personal  sac- 
rifices, ever  so  faithful  and  devoted  and  useful  to  their 
country,  are  nevertheless,  because  of  their  numerical  in- 
feriority, too  often  slighted  or  ignored,  while  the  labor 
leaders  representing  great  masses  of  men  are  publicly 
courted  and  extravagantly  praised  by  men  and  women 
powerful  in  making  public  sentiment  and  influencing  legis- 
lation in  favor  of  labor. 

Mr.  Moffat's  Position. 

But  upon  what  grounds  does  organized  labor  base  its 
claim  to  a  "closed  shop?"  Let  us  consider  an  argument  in 
favor  of  the  union's  "closed  shop"  by  a  well  known  labor 
leader.  In  an  address  delivered  at  the  National  Civic  Fed- 
eration Conference,  October  19,  1903,  Mr.  Edward  A. 
Moffat,  Editor  of  the  Bricklayers'  and  Masons'  Journal, 
said:  "I  would  remind  you  that  in  the  'union  shop'  the 
employer's  selection  o£  men  is  practically  unlimited.  He 
may  choose  from  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men  in  the 
particular  trade  union,  and,  moreover,  he  has  always  the 
right  to  hire  and  discharge.  Any  attempt  to  interfere  with 
this  right  of  the  employer  is  contrary  to  the  policy  of  trade 
unionism." 

This  may  be  the  policy  of  trade  unionism  but  it  is  surely 
not  the  practice.  Contracts  entered  into  between  labor  or- 
ganizations and  certain  industries  may  specify  that  the 
right  to  hire  and  discharge  is  in  no  sense  to  be  restricted, 
but  it  is  the  almost  common  practice  of  trade  unions  to  re- 
strict this  right. 

A  contract,  for  example,  entered  into  between  the  Unit- 
ed Mine  Workers  of  Illinois,  and  the  Illinois  Coal  Opera- 
tors' Association,  gives  to  the  operator  the  unrestricted 
right  to  hire  and  discharge,  but  what  are  the  facts?  If  dis- 
charged, the  agreement  gives  the  discharged  man  the  right 
to  file  a  grievance ;  and,  more  than  once,  mines  have  been 
thrown  into  idleness  in  violation  of  the  agreement  and  they 
were  kept  closed  until  the  discharged  man  was  reinstated. 

There  is  a  further  restriction  upon  the  employer's  right 
to  hire  and  discharge.  If  the  employer,  for  example,  has 
not  in  his  employ  as  many  workers  as  he  desires  or  needsf 
he  makes  the  fact  known.  Workers  arrive  and  they  are 
ready  to  join  the  union,  even  if  not  already  members,  and 
are  anxious  to  comply  with  the  laws  of  the  union  as  to  pay- 


36  Papers  and  Addresses 

ment  of  initiation  fee  and  dues.  The  local  union,  however, 
may  decide  to  reject  them  and  to  take  the  position  that  the 
employer  has  not  the  right  to  compel  them  to  admit  men 
to  their  local  organization.  And,  what  is  still  more  remark- 
able, the  local  union  may  declare  that  neither  the  State 
organization  nor  the  National  organization  has  that  right. 
It  is  even  more  remarkable  that  the  State  and  National 
organizations  may  acknowledge  themselves  powerless. 
Need  it  be  told  how  such  a  condition  affects  the  industries 
of  the  country?  The  number  of  the  workers  may  thus  be 
reduced  so  that  the  employer  has  not  even  a  choice  among 
union  men,  and  with  the  result  that  the  union  through  its 
local  organizations  has  it  in  its  power,  which  it  exercises, 
to  limit  the  employer's  right  to  hire  and  thus  it  creates  a 
monopoly  in  the  labor  market. 

Mr.  Moffat  also  undertakes  to  combat  the  statement 
made  by  employers,  that  all  employes  are  brought  prac- 
tically to  the  same  level,  and  he  meets  that  statement  of  the 
employers  with  this  declaration:  "The  employer  is  free 
in  the  premises  to  do  justice  to  the  superior  workman." 

Theory  Not  Always  Practice. 

This  is  an  assumption  merely.  The  employer  is  not 
permitted  to  pay  a  union  man  according  to  his  merits  even, 
for  in  the  event  he  chooses  a  really  superior  workman  and 
gives  him  a  maximum  wage — a  wage  to  which  he  believes 
this  workman  entitled  because  he  performs  more  work  and 
better  work,  the  union,  so  soon  as  it  makes  the  discovery, 
claims  that  all  men  shall  have  an  equal  wage.  If  here  and 
there  the  employer,  anxious  to  get  the  maximum  of  work, 
undertakes  to  pay  a  higher  wage  than  the  general  run  of 
laborers  receive,  thereupon  a  demand  is  made  that  the 
wages  of  all  workers  must  be  raised  to  the  maximum 
which  had  been  paid  to  the  superior  workman,  and  if,  per- 
chance, their  wages  are  not  promptly  raised  to  the  maxi- 
mum, trouble  is  almost  certain  to  ensue.  Not  infrequently 
the  local  committee  serves  notice  on  the  superior  workman 
that  he  cannot  earn  higher  wages  unless  his  brother  work- 
men earn  the  higher  wages  also,  and  he  is  told  that  he  is 
standing  in  the  light  of  his  brother  workmen  if  he  per- 
forms more  work  than  they  perform.  It  may  be  a  principle 
of  unionism  to  encourage  good  workmen,  but  the  practice 
of  the  union  too  often  discourages  them. 

Mr.  Moffat  says  also  that  "there  is  no  ground  for  the 


Open  Shop  vs.  Closed  Shop  37 

charge  that  the  trade  unions  want  not  only  wages  but 
profits  as  well." 

As  to  which  is  the  better  and  truer  exponent  of  union 
doctrine  I  do  not  propose  to  say,  but  this  statement  of  Mr. 
Moffat  is  flatly  contradicted  by  Mr.  John  Mitchell,  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  Mine  Workers  of  America. 

Both  in  the  Joint  Interstate  and  in  the  Illinois  Joint  State 
Conventions  of  Mine  Workers  and  coal  mine  operators,  Mr. 
Mitchell  has  made  the  statement  substantially  as  follows : 

"We  are  willing  to  admit  that  the  wages  in  a  certain 
mining  district  are  good — are  satisfactory  as  wages — we 
are  willing  to  admit  that  they  are  much  higher  than  they 
are  in  other  districts,  but  it  is  not  a  question  of  wages.  It 
is  a  question  of  getting  a  larger  share  of  the  profits  which 
coal  operators  are  earning." 

Ground  for  Opposing  the  Closed  Shop. 

Now  I  am  opposed  to  the  "closed  shop"  principle.  I 
believe  now,  as  I  have  always  believed,  in  the  organization 
of  labor — particularly  in  the  organization  of  common  labor. 
Common  labor,  in  my  opinion,  can  get  its  approximate 
rights  in  no  other  way,  and  I  therefore,  as  a  rule,  have  lit- 
tle sympathy  for  the  ordinary  laborer  who  refuses  to  join 
the  union. 

At  the  same  time  it  is  his  right  to  remain  out  of  the 
union  if  he  desires  to  do  so,  and  he  may  have,  so  far  as  we 
know,  some  good  and  sufficient  reason  to  justify  his  course. 
Generally,  though,  the  man  who  remains  out  of  the  union 
does  not  remain  out  merely  because  he  is  the  better  man  or 
better  workman.  If  he  is,  such  a  workman  ought  to  join 
the  union  in  order  to  bring  the  average  workman  up  to  a 
higher  standard.  That  is  a  duty  every  laborer  owes  to 
himself  and  to  his  fellow  workmen. 

I  make  this  statement  in  favor  of  labor  thus  emphatic, 
and  yet  I  well  know  that  there  are  thousands  and  tens  of 
thousands  of  workmen  in  the  union  who  would  be  glad  to 
get  out  of  it  if  they  could,  not  because  they  are  opposed 
to  healthy  union  principles,  but  because  they  are  opposed  to 
union  practices.  For  this  same  reason  primarily  some  la- 
borers, no  doubt,  refuse  to  enter  the  union. 

Though  the  abstract  principles  of  the  union  are  gener- 
ally good,  yet  the  principles  of  the  union  are  one  thing,  and 
the  practices  of  the  union  are  quite  another  thing. 

To   see   disorganized   and   demoralized    common    labor 


38  Papers  and  Addresses 

made  a  homogeneous  whole  in  which  every  man  really  sup- 
ports what  it  is  easy  to  see  should  be  the  true  principles  of 
united  labor,  ever  ready  to  help  punish  lawlessness  and  to 
reward  virtue  and  excellence  is  "a  consummation  devoutly 
to  be  wished."  Such  a  union  will  be  a  blessing,  indeed, 
and  not  until  the  labor  union  relies  only  upon  the  virtue 
and  skill  of  the  individuals  composing  the  union,  need  a 
recognition  of  the  "closed  shop"  as  a  principle  of  unionism 
be  expected.  When  worth  shall  be  the  test,  then  the  ques- 
tion of  an  "open"  or  a  "closed  shop"  will  cease  to  be  a 
question  over  which  there  need  be  any  serious  controversy. 

I  oppose  the  "union's  closed  shop"  because  of  the  claim 
made  that  the  "closed  shop"  shall  be  recognized  as  a  "prin- 
ciple" for  which  labor  organizations  contend.  While  I 
oppose  the  "closed  shop"  as  a  principle,  I  freely  admit  that 
in  practice  the  "closed  shop"  may  prove  wise  and  beneficent 
and  as  a  system  may  prove  to  be  one  good  enough  to  be 
adopted  where  the  parties  to  the  contract  freely  agree  to  it 
after  it  is  shown  to  be  beneficent. 

The  experience  of  the  past  five  years  has  clearly  demon- 
strated to  organized  labor's  best  friends  that  organized 
labor  has  not  earned  the  right  to  dictate  terms  for  the  em- 
ployment of  labor ;  nor  has  it  shown  itself  a  safe  agent  into 
whose  hands  can  be  entrusted  the  employment  or  control  of 
labor. 

Has  it  not  used  its  tremendous  power  to  compel  instead 
of  to  convince?  Has  it  not  generally  opposed  everybody 
and  everything  that  has  refused  to  grant  its  every  wish? 

Has  it  not  been  particularly  hostile — and  bitterly  so — 
to  our  federal  courts  and  to  the  regular  army,  and  have 
not  many  of  its  radical  members  openly  condemned  its 
members  who  joined  the  State  Guard? 

In  the  estimation  of  the  average  American  nothing  else 
has  injured  organized  labor  so  much  as  this  bitter  hostility 
to  our  highest  courts  and  our  trusted  army.  Innocent  of 
wrong,  why  do  labor  leaders  fear  these  agencies  establish- 
ed for  our  safety? 

The  American  people  believe  that  if  innocent,  neither 
the  federal  courts,  nor  the  federal  army  need  be  feared. 

Labor  organizations  if  in  the  right  will  find  American 
institutions  the  guardians  of  their  safety  and  the  promoters 
of  their  cause.  But  some  one  has  well  said  that,  "It  is 
fundamental  that  those  seeking  redress  in  law  must  come 
with  clean  hands."  Labor  organizations,  it  cannot  be  de- 


Open  Shop  vs.  Closed  Shop  39 

nied,  have  too  often  come  into  court  with  unclean  hands. 

The  same  writer  has  said,  and  in  saying  it  he  has  echoed 
the  sentiment  of  the  conservative  element  of  American  citi- 
zens— "that  the  country  is  rightly  of  the  opinion  that  the 
aggressions  of  capital  can  far  better  be  tolerated  than  the 
barbaric  criminality  of  which  labor  organizations  have 
been  guilty." 

It  should  be  easy  to  see  why  this  is  so,  for  the  aggres- 
sions of  capital  are  committed  by  the  few,  and  their  inter- 
ests often  conflict,  while  the  barbaric  criminality  of  labor 
organizations  is  traceable  to  the  acts  of  the  many.  In  a 
free  government,  like  ours,  when  the  people  have  once  been 
awakened  to  their  danger,  it  is  comparatively  easy  to 
thwart  the  criminality  or  tyranny  of  the  rich,  their  numbers 
being  small  and  their  interests  conflicting.  But  the  same  is 
not  true  of  the  labor  organizations,  since  labor  has  a  com- 
mon interest.  Then  too  public  sympathy  is  generally  on 
the  side  of  the  laboring  classes. 

The  Advantages  of  Organized  Labor. 

If  it  is  the  purpose  and  determination  of  organized 
labor  to  prove  itself  a  wise  trading  body  asking  justice 
only  at  the  hands  "of  the  employer  class,  it  need  not  insist 
upon  a  "closed  shop."  A  tremendous  advantage  over  its 
hated  foe  unorganized  labor,  it  already  enjoys,  and  it  will 
continue  to  enjoy  this  advantage  provided  its  organization 
is  worth  anything  at  all.  If  it  is  not  worth  anything,  shall 
it  obtain  something  to  which  it  is  not  entitled,  by  force? 
If  it  cannot  convince  selfish  employers  of  the  superiority 
of  its  members  as  workmen,  when  such  employers  are 
eagerly  seeking  such  workmen,  why  consider  its  claims  to 
a  monopoly  of  labor?  It  is  certain  that  the  "closed  shop" 
will  give  the  unions  such  a  monopoly. 

Once  the  union  has  secured  its  peculiar  form  of  "closed 
shop" — a  "closed  shop"  obtained  by  force, — it  will  be  only 
a  question  of  time  when,  by  intimidation,  the  union  will 
decree  that  its  members  shall  belong  to  the  same  lodge, 
practice  the  same  form  of  religion,  and  join  the  same 
school  of  politics.  That  is  not  what  the  average  American 
working  man  wants,  but  that  is  what  he  will  get  when  the 
union's  "closed  shop"  achieves  its  universal  triumph.  It 
will  make  labor  scarce  wherever  it  can,  it  will  make  the 
conditions  of  the  employer  well  nigh  intolerable;  and  it 
will  make  the  wages  of  labor  so  high  and  the  hours  of  labor 


4O  Papers  and  Addresses 

so  short  that  the  American  producer  will  no  longer  be  able 
to  successfully  compete  for  trade  in  the  markets  of  the 
world. 

The  "closed  shop"  in  the  sense  that  it  is  demanded  as  a 
right  of  organized  labor  and  to  be  recognized  as  a  principle 
of  unionism,  must  be  brought  face  to  face  with  the  decision 
of  the  courts,  with  the  practice  of  our  national  government, 
with  the  opinion  of  the  President  of  the  United  States,  with 
the  decision  of  the  Anthracite  Strike  Commission,  and  with 
the  views  expressed  by  leading  labor  leaders.  Here  is  the 
verdict : 

Verdict  of  Court  and  Government. 

The  Supreme  Courts  of  New  York  and  of  Pennsylvania 
have  declared  the  "closed  shop"  to  be  illegal. 

The  Appellate  Court  of  Illinois  has  held  it  to  be  a  crim- 
inal conspiracy. 

The  government  of  the  United  States  has  sometimes 
recognized  the  "closed  shop"  in  practice  but  has  repudiated 
it  in  principle.  In  fact  the  government  of  the  United  States 
takes  practically  the  fair,  common  sense  position  of  the  fair 
and  high-minded  class  of  employers.  In  other  words,  the 
government  of  the  -United  States  has  never  required  its 
employes  to  be  either  union  or  non-union  men,  leaving  that 
question  to  them  individually.  The  only  legal  test  it  could 
apply  to  applicants  for  positions  would  be  the  civil  service 
examination.  The  government  has  never  undertaken  to 
discharge  a  man  because  he  was  a  non-union  man  or  be- 
cause he  had  violated  some  union  rule.  The  government 
has  always  taken  the  position  that  the  only  right  it  had 
to  discharge  him  under  the  law  was  because  his  work  was 
unsatisfactory,  or  because  he  had  violated  some  govern- 
ment rule. 

The  President  of  the  United  States,  in  the  celebrated 
Miller  case,  not  only  stated  the  government's  view  on  the 
subject  of  the  "closed  shop"  and  his  own  view,  but  he  pre- 
sented the  view  of  ninety-five  per  cent  of  the  thoughtful, 
intelligent,  patriotic,  fair-minded  American  citizens.  He 
denied  to  no  man  the  right  to  work  and  earn  his  living 
whether  he  was  union  or  non-union,  Protestant  or  Cath- 
olic, Jew  or  Gentile,  black  or  white. 

The  Anthracite  Strike  Commission  which  was  appoint- 
ed as  a  result  of  the  urgent  request  of  organized  labor,  and 
whose  decision  was  generally  commended  by  labor  leaders, 


Open  Shop  vs.  Closed  Shop  41 

has  well  said  that  ' 'common  sense  and  common  law  alike 
denounce  the  conduct  of  those  who  interfere  with  this 
fundamental  right  of  the  citizen."  "The  assertion  of  the 
right  seems  trite  and  commonplace,  but  that  land  is  blessed 
where  the  maxims  of  liberty  are  commonplaces." 

This  same  decision  says:  "that  the  right  to  remain  at 
work  where  others  have  ceased  to  work,  or  engage  anew 
in  work  which  others  have  abandoned,  is  part  of  the  per- 
sonal liberty  of  a  citizen  that  can  never  be  surrendered,  and 
every  infringement  thereof  merits  and  should  receive  the 
stern  denouncement  of  the  law.  *  *  *  Our  language 
is  the  language  of  a  free  people,  and  fails  to  furnish  any 
form  of  speech  by  which  the  right  of  a  citizen  to  work 
when  he  pleases,  for  whom  he  pleases,  and  on  what  terms 
he  pleases,  can  be  successfully  denied." 

What  W.  D.  Mahon  Says. 

Let  me  direct  attention  briefly  to  what  Mr.  W.  D.  Ma- 
hon, President  of  the  Railway  Employes'  Amalgamated 
Association  of  America,  has  said  on  the  subject : 

"The  'open  shop'  is  absolutely  the  worst  issue  that  a 
union  can  take  up  if  it  wants  to  make  a  successful  fight. 
The  sympathy  of  the  public  will  always  be  with  the  other 
fellow  on  that  issue.  *  *  *  Within  the  past  three 
months  we  have  made  arrangements  with  nine  street  rail- 
way companies  in  various  cities.  I  told  the  employers  we 
would  not  go  into  that  matter,  as  we  recognized  their  right 
to  employ  any  one  they  saw  fit,  regardless  of  whether  they 
were  members  of  our  organization  or  not." 

Here  is  what  resulted  from  this  same,  practical,  hon- 
orable course. 

"At  the  same  time,  out  of  nine  agreements  five  are 
strictly  'closed  shop'  contracts.  The  other  four  practically 
amount  to  the  same  thing,  as  all  the  men  are  in  our  union 
anyway.  We  could  have  had  a  fight  in  every  one  of  the 
nine  cities  over  the  issue  if  we  had  wanted  to  take  it  up." 

There  is  much  more  that  Mr.  Mahon  has  said  on  the 
subject  but  what  I  have  quoted  should  suffice. 

If  the  parties  to  an  agreement  desire  the  "closed  shop" 
or  the  "open  shop,"  and  the  public  interest  is  subserved  bv 
the  adoption  of  one  or  the  other,  it  should  be  a  matter  of 
mutual  agreement  only  and  never  a  matter  of  force. 

In  view  of  these  clear  and  definite  expressions  of  opin- 
ion, let  me  ask,  can  the  cause  of  genuine  trade  unionism  be 


42  Papers  and  Addresses 

advanced  by  insisting  upon  the  recognition  of  the  "closed 
shop"  as  a  "principle  of  unionism?"  Can  organized  labor 
obtain  the  recognition  of  the  ''closed  shop"  as  a  "principle 
of  unionism"  save  by  force,  and,  if  obtained  by  force,  in 
defiance  of  the  wishes  of  an  overwhelming  majority  of  the 
American  people,  will  it  not  involve  us  in  a  conflict  that 
cannot  end  until  unionism  has  been  destroyed  ? 

The  Object  of  the  Leaders. 

The  object  of  those  labor  leaders  who  insist  upon  the 
recognition  of  the  "closed  shop"  as  a  "principle  of  union- 
ism" is  not,  I  regret  to  say,  to  secure  justice  for  labor  or  to 
do  justice  to  the  employer  class.  It  is  rather  to  obtain 
a  power  that  will  enable  the  union  to  obtain  not  only  that  to 
which  in  fairness  it  is  entitled,  but  to  obtain  just  what  it 
wants,  whether  it  is  its  right  or  not. 

I  know  it  will  be  said  by  the  advocates  of  the  "closed 
shop" — "Well,  capital  did  this,  and  capital  did  that,  and 
why  should  not  we  have  our  turn?" 

Two  wrongs  will  never  make  a  right,  and,  besides,  I 
am  not  speaking  for  capital,  but  for  myself  as  an  American 
citizen.  I  am  also  speaking  for  that  large  army  of  Ameri- 
can citizens — generally  known  as  the  middle  class — a  class 
that  must  work  from  day  to  day,  that  must  employ  mind  or 
muscle,  or  both,  to  live — a  class  that  has  no  other  source  of 
income,  that  has  not  the  dividends  paid  upon  capital  or  the 
strike  benefits  paid  to  discontented  and  striking  workers, 
and  that  must  therefore  work  continuously. 

I  belong  to  that  large  part  of  the  community  that  pays 
the  taxes,  that  pays  interest  to  the  capital  class,  that  gives 
to  the  poor  what  the  poor  imagine  they  are  getting  from 
the  rich ;  that  large  class  that  gives  out  of  all  proportion  to 
what  the  rich  give  and  upon  whom  the  community  makes 
great  demands  and  who  out  of  love  for  their  country  pay 
its  debts  and  fights  its  battles! 

The  narrow  and  radical  unionists  whom  I  have  been 
describing  are  purely  selfish,  and  at  times  illogical,  because 
they  ask  a  "closed  shop"  and  yet  they  "open"  their  union 
to  men  who  work  for  firms  and  companies  that  remain  out 
of  all  associations  that  recognize  and  deal  with  organized 
labor — deliberately  and  out  of  self-interest  placing  a  club 
of  destruction  in  their  hands  to  destroy  the  only  practical, 
helpful  friends  of  organized  labor. 

Organized  labor  must  declare  itself  and  it  must  show 


Open  Shop  vs.  Closed  Shop  43 

just  exactly  where  it  stands  before  it  has  a  right  even  to 
ask  the  recognition  of  the  "closed  shop"  as  a  "principle  of 
unionism." 

It  must  say  whether  it  is  striving  only  for  fair  wages, 
for  sane  and  healthy  conditions  of  labor,  and  for  kind  and 
humane  treatment  at  the  hands  of  the  employer,  all  these 
to  be  provided  for  under  a  system  of  trade  agreements,  or 
whether  it  means  to  claim,  as  many  unionists  have  claimed, 
that  it  is  entitled  to  a  share  of  the  profits,  the  right  to  strike 
in  sympathy  with  other  labor  organizations,  the  right  of 
interference  in  the  management  of  industrial  plants,  the 
right  not  only  to  agitate  in  the  very  shadow  of  the  industry 
where  men  work,  but  to  dictate  the  terms  upon  which  men 
shall  work  in  and  about  the  industrial  plants  where  they 
are  employed,  and  generally  and  at  all  times  to  act  as  un- 
compromising enemies  of  the  employer  class. 

What  Is  the  Union's  Aim? 

In  other  words:  Does  the  union  intend  to  encourage 
and  preserve  the  long-established  relations  between  master 
and  man,  to  recognize  the  right  to  hire  and  discharge 
freely,  to  recognize  the  right  of  the  employer  to  conduct  his 
ousiness  as  seems  best  for  all  concerned? 

Or  does  it  intend  to  organize  a  political  party  having 
for  its  real  object  the  destruction  of  existing  conditions  and 
systems  ? 

It  should  be  definitely  understood  that  trade  unionists 
are  not  all  of  one  mind  and  are  not  all  inspired  by  equally 
high  motives.  It  numbers  in  its  ranks  many  who  are  not 
satisfied  with  high  wages  and  the  best  conditions  possible, 
but  a  class  that  wants  a  share  of  the  profits  and  its  own 
way  of  determining  what  these  profits  are  and  that  without 
giving  any  guaranty  whatever  of  its  ability  or  desire  to  pay 
a  share  of  the  losses  when  losses  are  sustained.  This  class 
wants  a  system  of  shorter  hours  and  higher  wages ;  it  wants 
increased  authority  and  diminished  responsibility;  it  wants 
to  dictate  the  terms  and  conditions  to  the  employers  and  to 
insist  upon  issuing  orders,  edicts  and  ultimatums  to  its 
heart's  content. 

The  American  people,  regardless  of  all  classes  are  just 
as  much  interested  in  a  candid  answer  and  in  a  frank  dec- 
laration from  the  accredited  leaders  of  organized  labor  as 
the  employer  class  is  interested  in  such  an  answer.  For, 
after  all,  American  society  is  made  up  of  employers  and 


44  Papers  and  Addresses 

employes,  and  when  the  term  the  public  is  used  it  refers  to 
all  our  citizens,  and  when  the  term  public  opinion  is  used  we 
mean  the  fixed  views  of  the  overwhelming  majority  of  the 
citizens'  of  the  land. 

In  brief,  the  American  people  have  a  common  interest 
in  preserving  their  high  place  among  the  nations  of  the 
earth,  and  this  high  place  can  be  successfully  held  in  the 
face  of  the  vigorous  and  intelligent  rivalry  of  other  nations 
in  no  other  way  than  by  a  wise  and  patriotic  observance  of 
all  laws  economic,  natural  and  political,  and  by  all  classes 
of  people  in  the  community  determinedly  working  in  har- 
many  for  the  prosperity,  honor  and  glory  of  the  American 
commonwealth. 


THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  CAPITAL 


The  public  mind  seems  confused  as  to  the  proper  dis- 
tinction to  be  drawn  between  what  is  called  "consolidated 
capital"  and  what  is  termed  "organized  capital."  In  fact, 
that  there  is  any  difference  is  generally  denied.  This  is  not 
strange.  And  yet,  while  capital  is  consolidated  for  every 
other  purpose  than  to  deal  with  the  problem  of  labor,  it 
ought  to  be  organized  with  the  purpose  that  the  problem  of 
labor  may  become  its  main,  if  not  its  sole,  concern.  This 
statement  is  made  in  the  face  of  the  charge  that  capital  has 
consolidated  with  the  end  in  view  of  overawing  labor  in 
order  to  make  it  accept  terms  which  capital  believes  to  be 
fair,  and  also  of  the  graver  charge  that  consolidated  capital 
designs  to  make  itself  so  powerful  that  it  can  oppress  labor, 
and  so  force  it  to  accept  terms  that  are  manifestly  unfair.  If 
it  were  true  that  capital  really  had  such  a  motive  in  con- 
solidating, which  few  thoughtful  men  seriously  believe,  the 
futility  of  such  a  plan  has  certainly  been  demonstrated  each 
time  that  consolidated  capital  and  organized  labor  have 
come  in  conflict.  What  the  country  wants,  what  it  demands, 
what  it  must  have,  is  immunity  from  the  frequent  strikes 
and  lockouts  that  disturb,  at  short  intervals  and  for  long 
periods  of  time,  our  national  serenity.  Whatever  can  miti- 
gate this  evil  will  be  gratefully  accepted  by  a  long-suffering 
people ;  and  that  an  eminently  practical  people  like  ours  has 
provided  all  kinds  of  safeguards  against  loss  from  fire  and 
not  from  strikes  is  beyond  comprehension. 

Organized  Labor  Assumes  the  Responsibility. 

Organized  labor  assumes  the  responsibility  for  bringing 
on  a  conflict  with  capital.  It  makes  demands  which  capital 
refuses.  Idleness  follows,  then  follow  concessions,  after 
which  a  truce  is  signed  and  work  resumed;  and  such  con- 
cessions are  usually  made,  not  because  they  are  just  either 
to  capital  or  to  labor,  but  simply  to  enable  capital  to  resume 
work.  It  is  a  truce  only,  not  a  treaty  of  peace ;  and  after  a 
short  interval  hostilities  are  again  resumed.  All  this  is  natu- 

*Reprinted  by  permission  of  the  Century  Company,  New  York, 
from  the  Century  Magazine  of  February,  1903. 

45 


46  Papers  and  Addresses 

ral,  and  hence  strikes  and  lockouts  will  continue  to  occur 
until  organized  labor  is  confronted  by  organized  capital — 
not  with  hostile  intent,  but  to  treat  on  the  subject  of  the 
wages  and  the  conditions  of  labor  in  a  friendly  spirit  and  on 
an  equitable  business  basis.  This  stage  in  industrial  evolu- 
tion once  reached,  the  masses  will  soon  have  been  educated 
properly  to  discriminate  between  consolidated  capital  and 
organized  capital,  and  then,  too,  the  public  will  have  lost  its 
dread  of  consolidated  capital,  because,  having  become  or- 
ganized, it  will  have  become  educated  to  practical,  wise  and 
humane  methods,  and  quite  able  to  deal  with  labor,  whether 
organized  or  not. 

The  very  same  process  that  has  transformed  consolidated 
capital  will  eliminate  what  is  obnoxious  to  the  country  and 
hurtful  to  our  commerce  in  trade  unionism,  and  so  make  it 
in  practice  what  it  is  now  largely  only  in  theory.  Human 
nature  has  not  changed  since  capital  could  command  labor 
at  its  will  because  labor  was  then  not  organized.  At  pres- 
ent organized  labor,  which  is  less  than  ten  per  cent  of  all 
the  labor  of  the  country,  has  reversed  the  situation ;  and  it 
now  not  only  to  a  degree  dictates  terms  to  capital,  and  sets 
at  defiance  the  ninety  per  cent  of  labor  not  organized,  but  it 
has  the  great  political  parties  bidding  for  its  favor,  and  of 
late  the  churches,  through  sympathy,  and  with  perhaps  only 
a  superficial  knowledge  of  the  points  at  issue,  have  generally 
taken  its  side.  The  organization  of  capital  in  every  great 
industry  for  the  purpose  of  dealing  exclusively  with  ques- 
tions of  labor  becomes,  therefore,  a  necessity,  because  noth- 
ing else,  not  even  the  most  stringent  laws,  can  so  materially 
help  to  raise  labor  unions  to  a  higher  and  a  more  efficient 
level,  and  no  other  known  force  is  strong  enough  to  com- 
pel the  masses  to  take  a  rational,  businesslike  view  of  the 
relations  of  labor  to  capital.  Not  even  the  wisest  or  the 
most  powerful  labor  leaders  can  so  well  restrain  the  in- 
satiable hunger  of  victorious  labor  as  this  businesslike, 
peace-conserving  force. 

Successive  Conflicts  Should  Emphasize  the  Difference. 

Each  successive  conflict  between  capital  and  labor  should 
make  ever  plainer  to  all  observing  persons  this  wide  differ- 
ence between  consolidated  and  organized  capital,  illustrat- 
ing, at  the  same  time,  the  tremendous  advantage  enjoyed 
by  those  who  engage  in  organized  attack  over  those  who 
are  summoned  to  participate  in  unorganized  resistance.  The 


The  Organisation  of  Capital  47 

thousands  of  millions  of  wealth  controlled  by  the  capital 
class  has  generally  been  considered  in  itself  a  bulwark 
against  any  encroachments  upon  its  domain,  but  the  influ- 
ence and  power  of  organized  labor  have  clearly  demon- 
strated the  fallacy  of  such  a  claim. 

The  reason  that  these  vast  millions  belonging  to  the 
capital  class  are  of  no  particular  value  in  industrial  warfare 
is  that  they  are  not  available,  and  that  therefore  they  might 
as  well  be  units  as  millions.  Not  so  with  the  merely  paltry 
thousands  or  tens  of  thousands  of  dollars  belonging  to 
organized  labor,  every  dollar  of  which  is  available  at  any 
time  and  for  any  cause  deemed  sufficient  by  its  leaders, 
every  dollar  of  which  is  willingly  sacrificed  to  a  cause  which 
the  laborer  has  at  heart. 

It  is  this  which  gives  to  organized  labor,  with  an  insig- 
nificant bank  balance  to  its  credit,  so  tremendous  an  advan- 
tage over  unorganized  capital  with  its  countless  millions, 
to  every  dollar  of  which  there  is  a  string  attached. 

But  the  unavailability  of  this  wealth  is,  after  all,  not 
the  only  or  the  weakest  point  in  capital's  armor.  The  true 
reason  for  the  failure  of  capital  in  its  conflicts  with  labor 
is  that  capital  has  always  refused,  in  such  an  emergency,  to 
act  as  a  unit,  and  hence  it  has  paid  the  awful  penalty. 

After  all,  capital  and  labor,  if  properly  organized,  will 
be  virtually  equal  in  influence  and  power,  and  all  the  money 
necessary  for  either  is  just  so  much  as  is  found  adequate 
to  provide  effective  organization  for  both. 

How    Issues   Are  to  Be  Determined. 

The  issues  between  capital  and  labor  are  to  be  deter- 
mined, not  by  the  force  of  numbers  on  the  side  of  labor,  or 
by  the  weight  of  gold  upon  the  side  of  capital,  but  by  the 
natural  laws  which  control  in  the  industrial  world.  In  the 
very  nature  of  things  they  move  in  parallel  lines,  and  when 
they  cross  each  other  it  is  because  they  are  opposing  natu- 
ral laws.  The  chief  need — the  only  need,  in  fact — is  to  hold 
both  capital  and  labor  where  they  must  conform  to  the  natu- 
ral laws  of  trade. 

The  marked  difference  between  what  is  called  organ- 
ized capital  and  consolidated  capital  has  been  shown  in  every 
industrial  conflict  in  recent  years,  and  the  distinction  to  be 
drawn  between  them  is  this :  Capital  generally  appears  to  the 
superficial  observer  to  be,  not  a  divided  force,  but  a  united 
and  irresistible  force,  while  the  conflicts  in  labor  organiza- 


48  Papers  and  Addresses 

tions  give  color  to  the  belief  that  they  are  often  rent  into 
numberless  warring  factions.  Still,  when  a  conflict  be- 
tween unorganized  capital  and  organized  labor  is  precipi- 
tated, we  soon  discover  that  organized  labor  is  virtually  a 
unit,  and  that  it  speaks  through  one  man — a  leader.  Unor- 
ganized capital,  on  the  other  hand,  although  it  has  just  en- 
tered upon  a  conflict  with  organized  labor,  soon  discloses, 
as  if  by  design,  its  internal  differences,  and,  as  a  result, 
nearly  every  representative  of  the  capital  class  speaks  for  his 
own  individual  interests,  regardless  of  what  may  be  the  in- 
terests of  the  employer  class  in  general.  The  outcome  of 
such  a  conflict  can  be  easily  foretold. 

Consolidation  Is   Not  Organization. 

That  capital  is  not  organized,  and  that  consolidated  capi- 
tal is  not  only  not  organized  capital,  but  its  owners  are  at 
war  with  one  another,  have  been  glaringly  illustrated  in  the 
recent  anthracite  strike.  Even  in  the  deliberations  incident 
to  a  settlement  of  the  questions  in  dispute,  after  the  strike 
had  been  called  off  and  work  had  been  resumed  at  the  mines 
in  the  anthracite  region,  the  need  of  organization  was,  as 
never  before,  clearly  shown.  Here  the  organized  labor  of 
one  industry  nearly  half  a  million  strong  spoke  through  one 
man  whose  word  was  law.  No  other  figure  was  seen,  no 
other  voice  heard.  The  representatives  of  unorganized  cap- 
ital, on  the  other  hand,  could  not  even  agree  with  them- 
selves, much  less  reach  an  agreement  with  labor.  As  a  re- 
sult, the  intelligence,  if  not  the  honesty  and  sincerity,  of  the 
employer  class  generally  was  seriously  questioned,  and  a 
prejudice  already  great,  unjust,  and  harmful  was  increased. 
It  would  be  useless,  if  not  unfair,  to  criticize  the  anthracite 
operators.  The  fault,  after  all,  is  not  with  the  men,  but 
with  the  system,  or  rather  the  complete  absence  of  system. 

These  men,  with  their  inherited  prejudices  and  with 
their  out-of-date  methods  of  dealing  with  labor — particu- 
larly organized  labor — failed  to  recognize  certain  fixed  prin- 
ciples, certain  laws  which  are  as  unrepeatable  as  the  laws 
of  nature.  The  labor  union  has  proved  a  great  training 
school  for  labor  leaders  by  the  thousands,  and  it  has  sent 
forth  to  battle  in  the  industrial  arena  a  few  notable  leaders 
whose  skill  in  controversial  warfare  is  trained  to  a  point  of 
scientific  excellence.  They  are,  strictly  speaking,  labor  ex- 
perts ;  and  no  novice,  however  learned  or  well  equipped 
otherwise,  can  successfully  cope  with  them.  Warfare, 


The  Organization  of  Capital.  49 

whether  of  that  sterner  kind  where  arms  clash  and  lives  are 
sacrificed,  or  that  warfare  which  is  a  conflict  of  ideas  or  in- 
terests between  capital  and  labor,  is  a  science;  and  in  the 
one,  as  in  the  other,  those  who  contend  under  untrained  and 
unscientific  leaders,  and  are  opposed  by  trained  bodies  of 
men  under  the  direction  of  skilled  leaders,  simply  defy  ex- 
perience and  tempt  fate. 

In  every  great  industry  the  experience  of  experts  and  the 
knowledge  of  scientists  is  a  prime  necessity,  and  in  no  other 
department  of  any  great  industry  more  so  than  in  the  de- 
partment of  labor. 

Thus  we  shall  cease  stubbornly  to  declare  that  organized 
labor  is  wrong  and  that  it  must  be  resisted ;  but,  thus 
equipped,  we  can  meet  and  reason  with  it,  and  seek  to  per- 
suade it  to  do  what  is  wise  and  fair  and  best  for  all.  Thus 
we  apply  the  skill  of  the  specialist  to  the  tangled  problem 
of  labor,  and  bring  every  great  industrial  branch  under  the 
influence  of  economic  science  and  all  the  departments  of  in- 
dustry under  the  control  of  labor  experts,  to  the  end  that  we 
shall  find  labor  and  capital  "melting  into  each  other,"  so 
to  speak. 

But  ignore  scientific  knowledge  and  skill,  and  we  shall 
find  reason  to  agree  with  the  Duke  of  Argyll  that  "there 
is  danger  lest  the  spirit  of  association  should  attempt  to  act 
against  nature  instead  of  with  it."  Many  years  ago  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  said :  "This  government  cannot  endure  perma- 
nently half  slave  and  half  free."  With  equal  truth  we  can 
declare  now:  Industrial  peace  cannot  be  preserved  with 
labor  organized  and  capital  unorganized. 


THE  LABOR  PROBLEM 

IN  THE  SOUTH 


In  almost  every  discussion  of  the  labor  problem  prac- 
tically the  only  class  of  labor  taken  into  consideration  is  that 
known  as  common  labor — by  which  term  is  meant  the  labor 
that  is  grouped  into  large  bodies.  That  labor  which  is 
known  in  the  North,  East  and  West  as  common  labor  is 
similarly  known  in  the  South.  Mill,  mine  and  factory 
hands,  workers  on  streets  and  highways,  employes  in  rail- 
way depots  and  on  wharves  are  everywhere,  for  want  of  a 
better  term,  designated  as  common  labor.  In  this  discus- 
sion no  notice  need  be  taken  of  highly  skilled  laborers  who 
can  be  safely  classified  among  the  crafts,  and  who  are  sel- 
dom found  in  considerable  groups.  The  craftsmen  can 
take  care  of  themselves  and  need  no  union  to  protect  them. 
They  are  treated,  not  like  a  commodity  that  can  be  easily 
replaced  by  substitutes  from  an  emigrant  ship,  but  like  in- 
telligent human  agents. 

In  considering  the  general  subject  of  labor  with  special 
reference  to  the  South,  the  question  of  labor  in  itself,  while 
important,  is  not  complicated  with  so  many  difficulties  as 
confront  us  in  the  North ;  and  yet  the  difficulties  are  many, 
and  some  of  them,  unless  intelligently  dealt  with,  may  be- 
come serious. 

For  instance,  the  loss  of  the  black  man  as  a  laborer  at 
the  South  might  prove  a  serious  embarrassment,  or  the  loss 
by  the  black  man  of  confidence  in  and  respect  for  the  white 
man's  authority,  might  necessitate  an  admixture,  by  immi- 
gration, of  races  and  nationalities  which  would  push  the 
black  laborer  to  the  wall,  and  should  be  avoided  if  it  is 
possible  to  avoid  it.  To  no  one  is  this  a  matter  of  so  much 
importance  as  to  the  black  man. 

The  labor  problem  at  the  North  would  be  infinitely  sim- 
pler if  there  were  fewer  nationalities,  all  of  them  speaking 
and  understanding  the  English  tongue.  This  statement 
does  not  imply  that  those  speaking  foreign  tongues  are 

^Reprinted  by  special  permission  from  Bob  Taylor's  Magazine  for 
April,  1905. 

50 


Labor  Problems  in  the  South  51 

necessarily  inferior  in  character  or  intellect  to  the  English 
speaking  laborer,  but  the  troubles  arise  rather  because  the 
non-English  speaking-  laborers  are  the  victims  of  deception 
by  unscrupulous  interpreters  who  purposely  misrepresent 
what  is  said  to  them  for  their  benefit,  or  what  is  said  by 
them  to  their  employers. 

A  Common  Language  Spoken. 

The  fact  that  the  black  man  speaks  a  language  under- 
stood by  the  white  man  is  a  point  in  his  favor,  and  that  is 
also  a  reason  why  he  should  continue  to  be  the  most  de- 
sirable common  laborer  obtainable.  The  negro  at  the 
North  is  discriminated  against  in  all  labor  organizations  as 
well  as  in  every  relation  of  life,  but  in  the  South  he  still 
has  a  fair  chance  to  market  his  labor,  if  he  will  avail  him- 
self of  it  and  will  realize  his  opportunity.  So  far  the  very 
abundance  of  cheap  common  labor  in  the  South  has  hin- 
dered the  growth  of  the  labor  union  there  and  has  in  many 
instances  defeated  its  purposes  when  established.  The  want 
of  ambition,  which  makes  the  negro  content  with  low  wages 
and  inferior  conditions  of  living,  is  sometimes  found  in 
common  labor  at  the  North,  but  it  is  by  no  means  so  gen- 
eral as  among  the  black  race  in  the  South.  Particularly  is 
this  the  case  in  the  cities,  to  which  the  negroes  have  flocked 
in  great  numbers,  denuding  the  plantations  of  needed  help 
while,  in  the  cities,  holding  down  the  wages  of  common 
labor, — the  only  labor  in  which  the  negro  competition  has 
yet  been  apparent.  The  employers  of  labor  in  the  South 
should  do  everything  in  their  power  to  make  of  the  black 
man  all  that  it  is  possible  to  make  of  him  as  a  laborer ;  but, 
as  he  has  his  limitations  and  as  the  black  man  will  at  times 
leave  the  South  and  so  leave  an  opening  for  new  white 
labor,  the  South  must  use  her  energies  to  educate  this  new- 
ly acquired  immigrant  labor  up  to  American  standards — 
and  no  work  that  it  can  do  will  bring  greater  returns  than 
teaching  the  non-English  laborer  the  language  of  his  newly 
adopted  home. 

The  very  fact  that  union  or  organized  labor  is  not 
strong  in  the  South,  when  compared  with  the  average  sec- 
tions of  the  North,  gives  the  employer  class  in  the  South  an 
opportunity  which  they  may  and  should  utilize  in  preparing 
for  that  time  when  the  contests  incident  to  organization  are 
sure  to  come.  And  in  this  preparation  they  want  to  bear 
in  mind  the  undeniable  truth  that  the  quality  of  the  laborer 


52  Papers  and  Addresses 

is  generally  determined  by  the  quality  of  the  employer.  In 
considering  the  capacity  of  any  body  of  laborers  we  are  un- 
failingly considering  the  capacity  and  intelligence  of  the 
employers  in  directing  their  employes.  Employer  and  em- 
ploye alike  have  splendid  opportunities  opening  to  them  in 
the  South,  opportunities  in  many  respects  unrivalled ;  and  it 
is  of  the  highest  importance  that  they  make  a  right  begin- 
ning and  understand  each  other  at  the  start.  The  union 
will  indubitably  grow,  and  the  employer  should  welcome  it 
if  it  presents  itself  as  a  business  body  seeking  the  highest 
wages  compatible  with  commercial  or  competitive  condi- 
tions in  return  for  the  best  services  of  which  the  labor  of- 
fered is  capable. 

Labor  Must  Be  Respectful,  But  Not  Servile. 

But  in  the  South  labor  must  come  with  reason  in  its 
request.  It  need  not  be  servile,  but  it  must  be  respectful, 
for  it  is  still,  as  it  has  always  been,  characteristic  of  the 
people  of  the  South  that  they  will  brook  no  interference 
with  their  individual  liberty.  The  North  does  not,  and 
never  did,  understand  the  strength  of  this  underlying  prin- 
ciple of  Southern  manhood.  It  is  a  principle  so  strong 
that  it  does  not  disappear  in  a  single  generation. 

A  notable  instance  of  this  was  seen  in  a  recent  dispute 
over  the  mining  scale  in  Franklin  County,  Illinois.  The 
southern  part  of  Illinois  was  settled  by  Southerners,  mainly 
by  Tennesseeans  and  Kentuckians,  who  poured  into  that 
rich  country  a  few  years  before  the  war  and  for  a  few  years 
afterwards.  There  are  whole  communities  now  dominated 
by  Southern  thought  and  principles.  When  the  miners'  un- 
ion was  seeking  to  establish  itself  in  Franklin  County,  these 
farmers,  either  of  Southern  birth  or  of  Southern  ancestry, 
having  heard  that  the  representatives  of  the  miners,  whom 
they  described  as  agitators,  were  undertaking  to  interfere 
with  the  individual  rights  of  their  sons  to  work  without  dic- 
tation from  any  one,  offered  their  services  to  the  newly  es- 
tablished companies.  The  newly  established  companies, 
however,  politely  declined  the  proffered  assistance,  prefer- 
ring peaceable  adjustment.  But  the  tendered  services 
would  have  been  given  as  willingly  as  they  were  tendered. 

Propaganda  of  Education  Necessary. 

What  is  needed  in  the  North  is  also  needed  in  the  South, 
namely,  wise  and  well  informed  teachers  who  are  able  to 


Labor  Problems  in  the  South  53 

illumine  the  great  problem  of  labor  to  the  masses,  in  order 
that  they  may  distinguish  between  anarchy  or  socialism  on 
the  one  hand  and  the  accepted  political  principles  of  our 
country  on  the  other.  But  there  is  one  thing  to  be  truly 
said  about  the  South  that  will  always  commend  itself  to 
employers  contemplating  a  change  of  base  or  the  establish- 
ment of  themselves  for  the  first  time — and  it  will  com- 
mend itself  to  labor  whether  organized  or  unorganized — 
and  that  is  the  doctrines  of  the  socialist  have  found  no  en- 
couragement there.  Such  doctrines  cannot  thrive  in  the 
South  any  more  than  tropical  plants  can  survive  in  the 
polar  regions.  Labor  leaders  should  rejoice — in  fact  wise, 
educated,  far-seeing  labor  leaders  do  rejoice — that  this  spir- 
it prevails  in  the  South,  for  only  so  can  they  hold  their 
own  against  the  trouble-making  element  in  their  own  ranks. 
Thinking  too  much  of  established  institutions  and 
guarding  them  too  zealously  may  at  times  be  a  disad- 
vantage, but  as  a  general  thing  that  community  is  most  law- 
abiding  and  most  conservative  in  maintaining  the  rights 
and  privileges  of  all  where  due  reverence  is  cherished  for 
old  established  institutions ;  and  yet  the  wisest  conserva- 
tism is  that  which  steadily,  no  matter  how  slowly,  prepares 
itself  for  changes  that  are  inevitable.  Labor  conditions  in 
the  South  cannot  endure  as  they  now  exist,  unless  the 
South  is  to  lose  all  that  she  has  gained  since  the  overthrow 
of  slavery,  and  is  to  stand  and  view  the  triumphal  march 
of  the  country  without  participating  in  it. 

Labor  Must  Be  Given  a  Fair  Chance. 

The  South  should  not  seek  to  rest  under  present  condi- 
tions, for  they  cannot  continue.  If  the  present  labor  of  the 
South  becomes  educated  and  then  improves,  it  will  organize. 
And  if  it  does  not  improve,  new  labor  will  come  in  either 
already  organized  or  to  organize  immediately  on  its  arrival. 
I  know  this  view  will  be  contested  by  many  able  employers, 
but,  believing  it  to  be  true,  I  deem  it  best  to  say  it.  It  is 
a  great  deal  better  to  make  yourself  strong  so  that  you  may 
trust  in  your  strength  when  the  certain  change  comes  than 
to  rely  upon  the  fairness  of  the  other  side — and  this  is  equal- 
ly true  of  the  employer  and  the  employe. 

Experience  has  taught  the  South  much  on  the  question 
of  labor,  but  so  far  as  a  thorough  understanding  of  the  mat- 
ter goes,  the  South  is  barely  at  the  threshold.  The  first  and 
greatest  thing  that  the  South  has  to  realize,  which  as  yet  is 


54  Papers  and  Addresses 

not  realized  there  at  all,  is  this :  In  the  South  as  elsewhere 
it  will  be  found  that  cheap  labor  is  the  most  expensive.  To 
secure  good  results  is  the  desired  end  of  all  industry  and 
the  experience  of  older  industrial  communities  has  taught 
that  the  best  results  are,  have  been,  and  will  ever  be  obtained 
by  the  employment  of  the  best  labor.  The  best  labor  is  and 
will  always  be  that  labor  which  receives  the  highest  wages 
and  which  is  most  nearly  satisfied  with  surrounding  condi- 
tions. We  can  therefore  set  ourselves  no  more  important 
task,  no  more  sacred  duty,  than  that  of  finding  the  most 
nearly  perfect  system  under  which  the  highest  wages  can 
be  paid  in  return  for  the  most  efficient  service.  And,  aside 
from  the  justice  of  this  course,  aside  from  the  material 
benefit  to  the  employer,  there  is  no  investment  that  brings 
its  returns  so  quickly  to  the  community  at  large,  as  money 
paid  for  good  labor.  Money  so  paid  is  at  once  spent  for  the 
necessities  of  life,  for  all  the  comforts  that  can  be  afforded 
by  its  recipients,  and  so  is  circulated  almost  automatically. 

Labor  Conditions  North  and  South  Contrasted. 

Labor  organizations  have  made  small  headway  in  the 
South  for  other  reasons  than  the  preponderance  of  negro 
cheap  labor;  the  first  to  be  stated  being  the  advantages  of 
climate  and  of  cheap  living  possessed  by  the  Southern  work- 
er. The  winters  are  short,  the  summers  long.  Outdoor 
vocations  can  be  pursued  in  comparative  comfort  almost  the 
entire  year.  Fuel  bills  are  smaller,  the  cost  of  clothing 
less,  and  the  cheapness  of  land  opens  the  way  for  the  work- 
man of  even  moderate  means  to  possess  his  own  home,  if 
frugal  and  industrious.  He  can  be  his  own  landlord  on 
easier  terms  than  in  the  North.  But  on  the  other  hand, 
while  climatic  and  other  conditions  favor  the  workman  of 
the  South,  it  must  also  be  remembered  that  the  housing  of 
workmen  in  the  sparsely  settled  communities  or  in  the  min- 
ing camps  is  not  as  good  as  in  the  North  where  legislation 
and  the  agitation  of  the  labor  leaders  have  brought  about 
greatly  improved  conditions. 

In  the  cities  of  the  North  the  conditions  and  surround 
ings  of  the  workmen  are  even  more  noticeably  superior  to 
those  of  the  workmen  in  Southern  cities.  The  comforts  of 
such  flats  as  workingmen  occupy  in  the  large  cities  of  the 
North,  notably  in  Chicago,  are  practically,  if  not  altogether, 
unknown  in  the  South,  where  conveniences  are  fewer.  This 
very  custom  of  living  without  comforts  and  conveniences 


Labor  Problems  in  the  South  55 

has  operated  to  keep  wages  down  and  consequently  to  offer 
a  check  to  the  spread  of  unionism.  The  homes  of  many 
skilled  Northern  workmen  belonging  to  the  union  would  be 
a  revelation  to  the  workman  in  the  South  equally  skilled 
but  not  a  member  of  any  labor  organization,  and  receiving 
less  pay  for  his  services. 

The  organization  of  labor  in  the  South  has  also  pro- 
ceeded more  slowly  as  compared  with  the  North  because  of 
the  more  rapid  growth  and  development  of  the  North.  It 
is  a  fact  at  once  apparent  that  cities  where  the  unions  are 
strong  are  the  cities  that  are  growing  most  rapidly.  Another 
cause  is  the  scarcity  of  manufacturing  interests  in  the  South 
and  the  consequent  small  demand  for  skilled  workmen,  who 
are  therefore  not  in  the  South  in  sufficient  number  to  or- 
ganize effectively  against  the  mass  of  unskilled  and  partly 
skilled  labor.  The  lack  of  numerous  large  manufacturing 
enterprises,  and  of  numerous  mercantile  interests,  also  cause 
a  lack  of  sharpness  in  competition  and  has  made  employes 
less  ready  or  able  to  exact  the  utmost  that  could  be  paid  them. 

The  difficulties  of  organizing  labor  in  the  South  are  such 
as  always  mark  the  initial  efforts  at  organization.  The  un- 
ion men  are  out  of  the  Alabama  mines,  just  at  this  time,  for 
instance,  and  new  men  have  their  places.  The  new  men  are 
being  trained  to  their  work,  and  are  receiving  practically,  if 
not  exactly,  the  wages  asked  for  by  the  union.  As  the  num- 
ber of  the  skilled  workmen  increases,  the  necessity  of  or- 
ganization will  become  more  apparent  to  them  all,  and  the 
larger  the  number  of  men  trained  for  the  work,  the  more 
effective  the  union  will  become.  The  union  wins  victories 
for  others  oftentimes  where  it  is  itself  nominally  defeated. 

Drawbacks  to  Organized  Labor. 

The  question  is  asked,  and  with  propriety,  of  the  leaders 
of  organized  labor,  why  it  is,  if  organized  labor  offers  or 
promises  the  best  workmen,  that  employers  constantly  resist 
its  encroachment  and  turn  it  out  and  replace  it  whh  unor- 
ganized labor  if  they  can.  There  are  several  reasons  why 
this  is  so.  It  is  not,  as  the  labor  leader  frequently  answers, 
because  the  employer  is  short-sighted  and  imagines  that 
when  he  can  get  cheap  labor  he  is  making  money,  al- 
though it  is  at  times  due  to  the  want  of  discernment  and  en- 
lightenment on  the  part  of  the  employer.  The  objection 
made  to  organized  labor  by  its  very  best  friends  among  the 
employers  is  the  short-sighted  policy  of  the  organization  in 


56  Papers  and  Addresses 

winking  at  or  permitting  the  well-known  tyranny  of  the  un- 
ions, and  also  that  air  of  proprietorship  which  petty  labor 
leaders  so  often  assume. 

I  have  never  denied  the  right  of  labor  to  organize,  nor 
can  I  deny  the  necessity  for  labor  to  organize;  and,  in  the 
very  nature  of  things,  it  seems  to  me  that  it  is  best  that 
capital  deal  with  labor  as  a  unit.  But  at  the  same  time  I 
have,  in  pursuing  my  duties  in  adjusting  labor  disputes, 
been  brought  in  contact  with  labor  leaders  here  and  there 
whose  insolence  and  arrogance,  whose  absurd  claim  of  being 
labor's  unselfish  and  only  friend, — made  me  wish  the  whole 
world  of  organized  laborers  and  their  leaders  at  the  bottom 
of  the  sea.  More  than  one  true  friend  of  organized  labor 
has  been  lost  to  a  worthy  and  noble  cause  for  no  other  rea- 
son than  that  they  have  been  grossly  offended  and  outraged 
by  unworthy  representatives  of  labor  organizations. 

While  the  slow  growth  of  the  union  in  the  South  is  no 
doubt  a  discouragement  to  labor  organizations,  it  is  a  benefit 
to  labor  in  the  long  run.  It  is  also  at  the  same  time  an  ad- 
vantage to  capital  that  labor  is  being  slowly  organized. 
Looking  to  the  future  it  is  an  advantage  both  to  capital  and 
labor  that  the  growth  of  the  labor  organization  does  not  go 
too  far  in  advance  of  the  education  of  the  laboring  classes 
and  that  the  employer  class  may,  if  it  has  an  eye  to  its  own 
interest,  organize  in  order  successfully  and  intelligently  to 
treat  with  organized  labor  when  it  has  become  a  force  to  be 
dealt  with  in  the  South. 

Employers  Must  Organize. 

Experience  proves  that  even  the  most  thoroughly  organ- 
ized labor  unions  are  not  all-powerful  when  the  employers 
stand  together,  and  the  paramount  importance  of  organiza- 
tion among  the  employers  has  been  repeatedly  demonstrated. 
When  this  organization  of  the  employers  shall  have  been 
effected,  inquiry  into  cause  and  effect,  careful  study  of  the 
labor  problem,  will  quickly  show  the  great  advantage  and 
profitableness  of  dealing  fairly  with  labor.  It  will  show 
that,  if  the  employers  are  loyal  to  each  other,  and  if  they 
have  an  organization  in  which  all  of  its  members  have  con- 
fidence, they,  whether  dealing  with  organized  or  unorgan- 
ized labor,  are  certain  to  obtain  their  approximate  rights. 
The  many  labor  tangles  in  which  the  country  has  at  times 
been  involved  were  due  far  more  to  the  disorganized  condi- 
tion of  the  employer  class  than  to  the  cohesiveness  and  pow- 


Labor  Problems  in  the  South  57 

er  of  the  labor  class.  Whenever  the  labor  class  has  become 
needlessly  strong  and  where  it  practices  tyranny  and  oppres- 
sion, there  the  employer  class  will  be  found  to  have  neglect- 
ed its  duty  to  itself. 

Another  result  of  the  study  of  conditions  will  be  that  the 
employer  class  will  decide  to  be  fair  in  dealing  with  labor, 
because  in  the  long  run  it  will  bring  the  largest  dividends. 
This  cannot  be  accomplished  by  dealing  with  unorganized 
labor,  where  the  employers  have  the  whole  matter  practical- 
ly under  their  own  control,  and  thinking  only  of  immediate 
returns,  will,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  take  advantage 
of  the  worker.  Dealing  with  organized  labor  is  not  only 
more  satisfactory,  but  more  profitable  in  ultimate  results. 

The  question  of  individual  rights  has  had  a  large  part  in 
Southern  labor  troubles.  It  was  a  question  of  the  employ- 
er's right  to  manage  his  property  for  himself  in  his  own  way 
that  defeated  an  almost  universal  strike  of  the  Nashville 
Street  Railway  employes  two  or  three  years  ago.  The  un- 
ion was  formed  and  made  its  demands.  The  management 
declined  to  recognize  the  union  or  to  grant  the  demands, 
and  successfully  resisted  the  resulting  strike.  But  the  man- 
agement, I  am  informed,  gave  careful  examination  to  the 
facts  thus  brought  to  their  attention  and  has  voluntarily 
advanced  wages  and  improved  conditions  to  a  point  far  be- 
yond what  was  formulated  in  the  union's  demands.  There 
is  no  union  of  the  street  railway's  employes  now  at  Nash- 
ville, and  so  long  as  the  present  intelligent  and  progressive 
policy  is  pursued  there  will  be  none  and  there  will  be  none 
needed.  Indeed,  the  only  excuse  for  labor  to  organize  is 
that  the  policy  of  the  employer  has  too  often  been  unintelli- 
gent, unprogressive  and  not  in  sympathy  with  the  reasonable 
rights  and  needs  of  labor. 

Higher  Standard  of  Wages  a  Necessity. 

But  the  organization  of  labor  and  the  advancement  of 
wages  will  do  more  than  any  other  thing  to  lend  confidence 
to  those  who  are  looking  to  the  South  as  a  field  for  invest- 
ment. The  Northern  capitalist  and  investor  cannot  be  made 
to  believe  that  labor  as  good  and  efficient  as  Northern  labor 
will  remain  unorganized  and  render  its  service  for  one-third 
or  one-half  of  what  the  Northern  workman  receives.  Nor 
does  the  Southern  worker  have  the  same  incentive  to  the 
high  efficiency  reached  by  the  Northern  workman.  One  of 
the  most  serious  mistakes  made  by  many  Southern  communi- 


58  Papers  and  Addresses 

ties  in  presenting  to  the  Northern  investor  the  advantages 
at  the  South  is  that  they  put  emphasis  on  the  fact  that  skilled 
and  unskilled  labor  is  "cheap."  Cheap  labor  that  is  at  the 
same  time  efficient  is  an  unknown  thing  in  the  North,  and 
Northern  men  who  are  familiar  with  the  labor  question  will 
not  believe  that  it  exists  in  the  South.  "If  it  were  as  ef- 
ficient, it  would  be  as  well  paid,"  they  say.  The  proffer  of 
"cheap"  labor  has  done  much  to  retard  the  industrial  devel- 
opment of  the  Southern  states.  It  is  now  the  universal  cry 
among  the  employers  of  the  North,  particularly  among 
those  who  oppose  organized  labor,  that  they  are  willing  to 
pay  and  do  pay  the  highest  wages  anywhere  obtainable  and 
that  they  are  willing  to  afford  and  do  afford  to  their  em- 
ployes the  most  favorable  working  conditions. 

Child  Labor. 

The  question  of  child  labor  is  one  which  must  be  deter- 
mined by  humane  principles,  and  yet  it  is  a  question  on 
which  much  fanaticism  has  been  expended  and  much  maud- 
lin sentiment  indulged.  The  child  develops  earlier  in  the 
South,  where  the  average  boy  of  fourteen  is  as  mature  as 
the  average  boy  of  sixteen  in  the  North.  It  is  a  cause  for 
gratification,  a  fact  to  the  credit  of  the  South,  that  recent 
child  labor  laws  have  removed  from  mills  and  mines  and 
factories  a  vast  army  of  child  laborers  who  properly  be- 
longed in  the  nursery  or  at  school.  It  was  the  South's 
shame  that  they  were  ever  permitted  there  under  conditions 
once  existing,  and  still  existing  to  a  degree. 

But,  while  believing  that  the  question  of  child  labor 
should  be  closely  studied  and  the  interest  of  the  child  guard- 
ed, I  know  that  this  is  not  always  accomplished  in  the  case 
of  boys  by  making  it  an  offense  punishable  by  fine  and  im- 
prisonment to  keep  boys  of  thirteen  and  fourteen  years  at 
work,  particularly  since  in  certain  classes  of  society  they 
have  no  idea  of  continuing  at  school  after  they  reach  that 
age.  Anything  is  better  than  idleness.  It  is  a  thousand  to 
one  better  for  a  boy  of  twelve  to  be  at  work  in  mine,  factory 
or  mill  than  to  be  allowed  to  remain  unemployed  and  unoc- 
cupied. If  he  is  to  be  forced  out  of  employment,  then  pro- 
vision must  be  made  to  force  him  into  school.  The  atten- 
tion that  has  been  drawn  to  child  labor  in  the  South  comes 
about  not  so  much  by  the  efforts  of  philanthropists,  not  so 
much  by  the  work  of  earnest  students,  as  by  that  class  of 
employers  in  New  England  who  formerly  employed  children 


Labor  Problems  in  the  South  59 

of  tender  years,  but  who  were  forced  to  desist  as  the  result 
of  legislation,  and  who  for  this  reason,  and  not  from  any 
high  motives,  directed  attention  to  child  labor  in  the  cotton 
mills  of  the  South.  I  do  not  mean  to  justify  what  is  in- 
jurious to  the  children,  but  in  considering  this  whole  ques- 
tion trade  or  competitive  conditions  cannot  be  wholly  ig- 
nored. We  know  that  the  advocates  of  child  labor  laws 
are  often  selfishly  influenced  and  that  they  aim  to  reduce 
the  army  of  workers  in  the  hope  thereby  to  monopolize  labor 
as  far  as  possible.  It  is  often  for  the  same  selfish  reason 
that  the  hours  of  labor  are  restricted. 

Much  of  the  opposition  to  child  labor  has  undoubtedly 
been  removed  by  the  course  of  mill  owners  in  the  South, 
such  as  the  Eagle  and  Phoenix  mills  at  Columbus,  Ga.,  the 
Unity  Cotton  Mills  at  Lagrange,  Ga.,  and  mills  in  Guilford 
County,  N.  C,  and  Pelzer,  S.  C.  In  these  the  children  are 
required  to  spend  a  certain  portion  of  their  time  in  schools 
ranging  from  kindergartens  to  industrial  training  schools, 
which  are  supported  mainly, — and  in  many  cases  altogether, 
— by  the  cotton  mills  themselves.  The  press  and  pulpit 
unite  in  saying  that  in  those  mills  many  of  the  children  have 
much  better  facilities  for  improvement  than  they  had  before 
their  parents  left  the  farms  and  brought  them  to  the  mills. 

Excellence  Rather  Than  Cheapness. 

The  South  suffers  from  poorly  paid  labor,  and  continues 
to  suffer  despite  the  fact  that  conditions  are  such  as  make 
it  possible  for  her  to  pay  higher  prices  without  injuriously 
affecting  any  of  her  industries.  As  the  wealth  of  the  world 
increases  the  individual  wants  more  and  greater  conven- 
iences, and  more  and  more  grows  the  demand  for  excellence 
rather  than  cheapness  to  be  the  chief  consideration.  The 
era  of  cheapness  is  on  the  decline;  the  product  of  mill  and 
factory,  of  shop  and  lathe  and  hand,  must  be  better  to-day 
to  be  satisfying  than  at  any  time  in  the  world's  history. 
While  excellence  is  sought  the  more,  cheapness  is  laughed  at 
and  passed  by. 

The  Southern  states  are  in  an  enviable  position  to-day. 
The  South  ought  to  produce  nearly  all  it  consumes,  and 
those  things  it  can  economically  produce  for  its  own  con- 
sumption it  should  certainly  be  able  to  sell  in  Mexican  and 
South  American  markets  in  successful  competition  with  the 
rest  of  the  world.  How  successfully  this  can  be  done  will 
depend  upon  the  ability  of  the  South  to  produce  the  best 


60  Papers  and  Addresses 

goods  for  the  least  money,  and  it  can  only  do  this  provided 
its  labor  is  the  best.  But  its  labor  cannot  be  the  best  unless 
it  is  paid  the  highest  wages  and  is  afforded  the  most  satis- 
factory conditions  under  which  workmen  can  perform  their 
services,  and  under  which  they  and  their  families  can  live. 

When  labor  has  been  organized  on  business  lines  and  is 
a  live  competitor  of  unorganized  labor,  it  will  not  only  be 
the  successful  competitor  but  will  furnish  the  best  labor 
obtainable.  Nowhere  has  organized  labor  under  such  con- 
ditions so  fine  an  opportunity  or  so  fair  a  chance  as  in  the 
South.  But  as  I  said  before,  the  South  is  the  stronghold  of 
individual  rights.  The  workman  must  respect  the  individ- 
ual rights  of  the  employer  and  the  employer  in  return  will 
respect  the  individual  rights  of  the  workman. 

It  is  not  only  skilled,  law-abiding  laborers  that  are  neces- 
sary to  the  South's  industrial  success,  but  it  is  first  of  all 
necessary  that  employers  be  enlightened  and  abreast  of  the 
times  in  order  that  they  may  see  clearly  what  their  rivals 
are  doing  and  what  the  markets  of  the  world  require.  And 
chiefly  employers  must  be  just,  wise  and  humane  in  order 
that  they  may,  en  joy  the  confidence  and  respect  of  their  men. 

It  is  indisputable  that  wherever  there  are  employers  who 
are  wise  and  humane,  working  in  harmony  with  laborers 
who  are  skilled,  frugal  and  law-abiding,  the  community 
where  the  combination  is  found  has  a  sure  guaranty  of 
numerical  growth  and  of  substantial  material  prosperity. 
Growth  in  population  is  gratifying  to  most  citizens,  notably 
so  when  accompanied  with  industrial  growth  as  well,  but 
substantial  and  lasting  prosperity  has  too  often  been  sacri- 
ficed in  the  eager  desire  of  one  community  to  herald  to  the 
world  a  larger  population  than  its  rival  possessed.  In- 
creased numbers  and  wealth — if  they  bring  in  their  train 
an  unnatural  increase  in  vice  and  crime,  as  we  too  often 
find  to  be  the  case, — are  infinitely  worse  than  if  there  were 
no  growth.  Southerners  sometimes  lament  that  the  South 
does  not  grow  fast  enough,  yet  that  it  makes  haste  slowly 
is  the  South's  good  fortune,  since  the  criminal  classes  have 
not  increased  with  the  population  as  at  the  North.  The 
Southern  people,  conservative  always,  should  be  in  nothing 
so  conservative  as  in  the  determination  that  this  shall  still 
be  true ;  that  while  it  is  increasing  in  population  and  wealth 
the  South  shall  also  accomplish  the  more  difficult  and  im- 
portant duty  of  diminishing  the  percentage  of  vice  and 
crime. 


THE  SOUTH'S  SURE  WAY 

TO  INDUSTRIAL  PEACE 


The  Industrial  South  is  an  ever  increasing  factor  in 
the  nation's  growth.  From  the  peaceful  and  somewhat 
indolent  life  of  the  broad  plantation  to  the  strife  and  stir 
of  the  manufacturing  center  has  been  a  short,  though  most 
decisive,  step.  From  the  time  when  the  South  raised  cot- 
ton for  Old  England  and  New  England  to  spin  and  weave 
into  the  world's  garments ;  when  the  South  made  the  money 
received  for  the  raw  cotton  purchase  every  necessary  of 
life  and  all  the  luxuries,  buying  back  the  finest  fabrics  made 
of  its  own  snowy  staple  for  use  at  home,  till  now,  has  been 
a  span  so  short  that  through  all  of  it  have  passed  men  and 
women  still  living.  The  changed  conditions  that  followed, 
or  rather  that  came  with,  the  great  Civil  War,  form  a  sharp 
contrast  with  the  old  order,  and  yet  the  shock  of  the  change 
was  hardly  passed  before  the  South  was  awake  to  her  op- 
portunities. 

Returning  from  the  war  to  their  ruined  fortunes  and 
their  desolated  fields,  and  adopting  as  best  they  could  the 
revolutionized  labor  system  that  came  after  our  national 
tragedv,  Southern  men  began  to  build  anew,  and  to  de- 
velop from  the  wreck  of  the  agricultural  past  an  industrial 
future.  There  were  problems  new  and  as  yet  unsolved 
awaiting  them,  but  they  tempted  the  earnest  student  and 
were  not  without  solution.  Slowly,  as  the  year  passed,  one 
stage  of  development  has  succeeded  to  another  until  the 
Industrial  South  is  not  a  new  or  a  misunderstood  term. 

Consider  the  fact  that  it  has  not  been  many  years  since 
the  whole  industrial  field  lay  between  Portland,  Maine,  and 
Pittsburg,  and  that  elsewhere  in  the  country  business  con- 
ditions fluctuated  in  sympathy  with  activity  or  depression 
within  this  contracted  sphere.  Now,  industrial  activity  has 
permeated  other  sections,  the  Mississippi  Valley,  the  Rocky 
Mountain  section,  the  Pacific  Coast,  and  has  spread  south- 
ward, and  thus  the  way  has  been  and  is  being  gradually 

*Reprinted  by   special  permission   of  the  publishers   from   Bob 
Taylor's  Magazine  for  October,  1905. 

61 


62  Papers  and  Addresses 

paved  towards  a  time  when  no  general  panic  can  occur, 
bringing  on  world-wide  catastrophies.  Ordinarly  hardly 
more  than  a  single  section  will  be  affected  at  a  time,  and  thus 
all  other  sections  may  aid  in  staying  any  general  depression. 
In  recording  this  advance,  it  may  be  safely  said  that  the 
most  marvelous  industrial  development  recorded  in  history, 
along  with  unexampled  agricultural  progress,  is  that  of  the 
South  during  the  past  twenty-five  years.  This  develop- 
ment has  been  largely  brought  about  by  the  people  of  the 
South  themselves.  Where  most  has  been  done  it  has  been 
done  by  men  "to  the  manor  born."  They  not  only  accepted 
the  new  and  strange  condition  with  a  never  before  seen 
philosophy,  but,  realizing  the  opportunities  that  lay  spread 
around  them,  they  went  to  work  with  determined  will  and 
fixity  of  purpose. 

Only  the  Beginning. 

And  yet,  with  all  that  they  have  so  far  achieved,  the 
South  has  not  yet  even  entered  upon  the  first  stage  of  her 
industrial  greatness. 

It  may  be  asked,  "When  will  the  first  step  be  taken  for 
this  first  stage?"  When  the  South  is  able  to  provide  for 
her  people  practically  all  the  necessaries  as  well  as  the  lux- 
uries of  life.  Nature  has  given  the  South  every  raw  ma- 
terial and  the  originating  effort  necessary  for  all  her  needs 
— the  luxuries  as  well  as  the  necessaries  of  life.  For  ex- 
ample, she  has  everything  that  is  needed  to  produce  silk, 
and  to  produce  wines,  among  the  luxuries,  and  she  has 
every  variety  of  timber,  every  variety  of  cereals,  vegetables, 
fruits,  and  all  the  minerals  to  supply  life's  various  neces- 
sities. She  can  make  her  own  paints,  her  own  dyes,  and 
she  can  weave  for  herself  fabrics  of  every  class  and  kind. 
The  fattest  cattle  cover  every  hillside,  and  her  paddocks 
are  filled  with  the  fleetest  and  most  famous  thoroughbreds. 
In  a  community  that  can  produce  all  these  things,  the  neces- 
saries and  the  luxuries  of  life  alike,  and  with  almost  equal 
facility,  where  friction  in  the  labor  world  does  not  exist, 
because  there  is  found  stability  with  plenty,  and  where  the 
maximum  wages  can  be  paid  in  every  industrial  pursuit 
without  violating  the  economic  laws — and  where  there  is 
only  the  minimum  of  the  commonest,  hardest  and  most 
hazardous  labor — industrial  greatness,  a  fairly  equitable 
distribution  of  the  world's  wealth,  and  a  contented  people, 
are  found.  All  of  this,  now  in  progress,  is  aiding  greatly 


The  South' s  Sure  Way  to  Industrial  Peace          63 

the  material  advancement  of  the  South,  and  affords  condi- 
tions most  favorable  to  its  substantial  and  continued  in- 
dustrial development. 

So  far,  along  with  the  degree  of  industrial  develop- 
ment that  has  been  brought  about,  there  has  been  a  gen- 
eral industrial  peace,  broken  rudely  at  times,  but  not  at  such 
frequent  intervals  as  to  cause  alarm.  Still,  the  peace  has 
been  broken  enough  to  demonstrate  that  the  study  of 
thoughtful  men  should  be  directed  to  the  important  con- 
sideration of  the  best  methods  for  preserving  this  industrial 
peace  as  a  concomitant  and  companion  of  the  industrial  de- 
velopment that  is  certainly  in  store. 

Industrial  growth  elsewhere  has  been  accompanied  by 
industrial  warfare  that  has  become  at  times  so  bitter  that 
the  two  are  by  many  regarded  as  inseparable  companions. 
Indeed,  many  people  of  the  South  do  not  favor  the  acqui- 
sition of  industrial  establishments  in  their  communities  for 
fear  of  the  labor  conflicts  which  they  verily  believe  these 
industries  inevitably  bring  in  their  train,  and  unless  they 
shall  learn  how  to  fairly  and  properly  manage  labor  it  is 
best  so. 

Industrial  War  Can  Be  Averted. 

While  this  belief  has  been  in  part  justified  by  the  ex- 
perience of  other  communities,  the  South  is  fortunately  and 
exceptionally  situated  in  this  respect,  for  it  is  demonstrable 
that  industrial  peace  and  industrial  growth  are  possible  at 
one  and  the  same  time  in  the  South,  more  than  in  any  other 
part  of  the  world.  The  reasons  for  this  belief  are  well 
founded.  The  South's  Way  to  industrial  peace,  along  with 
industrial  development,  is  made  easy  in  the  first  place  by 
its  homogeneous  population.  This  tremendous  advantage 
over  conditions  in  the  North  is  not  a  sentiment,  but  a  grati- 
fying fact.  As  yet  there  has  been  no  flood  of  foreign  im- 
migrants pouring  into  the  South,  large  numbers  of  whom 
do  not  speak  the  English  language,  and  who  do  not  care 
to  learn  to  speak  it.  The  people  are  homogeneous  because 
they  are  either  native  to  the  soil  or  immigrants  from  the 
other  states  of  the  American  Union.  This  condition  should 
be  maintained  for  the  best  interests  of  the  South,  for  herein 
lies  its  power  to  lay  deep  and  firm  and  enduring  the  founda- 
tions of  satisfactory  labor  conditions,  without  the  necessity 
of  any  marked  changes  in  the  conditions  now  existing.  To 
this  end  there  should  be  a  continued  effort  to  maintain  the 


64  Papers  and  Addresses 

use  of  one  language  only  in  all  the  South.  If  those  who 
do  not  speak  the  English  language  should  be  brought  in, 
they  should  be  taught  to  speak  it — should  be  made  English- 
speaking  people;  for  a  homogeneous  people  enjoys  advan- 
tages almost  incalculable  as  compared  with  one  where 
many,  or  even  a  few  tongues,  are  spoken  daily.  Ignorance 
of  the  language,  whether  it  be  our  ignorance  of  theirs  or 
the  foreigner's  ignorance  of  ours,  is  most  fruitful  of  sus- 
picion. 

Many  communities  in  the  South  are  struggling  for  the 
wrong  things  in  the  belief  that  big  cities  and  pretentious 
names  for  the  streets  and  public  thoroughfares  are  elements 
of  greatness.  But  the  great  advantage  of  the  South  lies 
in  the  fact  that  it  is  without  big  cities — that  its  cities  and 
towns  are  full  of  historic  interest. 

Historical  Associations  an  Asset. 

The  history  of  any  community  is  a  valuable  asset,  and 
nothing  draws  the  visitor  or  investor  more  quickly — other 
advantages  being  equal — than  the  historic  surroundings  and 
associations  of  a  city.  There  are  many  old-world  cities 
whose  history  and  historic  names  draw  multitudes  of  vis- 
itors, that  do  much  towards  supporting  the  city's  popula- 
tion and  the  city's  business.  It  is  wise  in  Southern  com- 
munities to  foster  all  that  tends  to  the  preservation  of  the 
things  which  are  distinctively  historic  for  the  history  of  any 
place  is  a  valuable  asset. 

The  South  should  realize,  therefore,  the  commercial 
value  of  the  wealth  of  history  connected  with  its  great  bat- 
tlefields. Such  places  will  never  lose  their  interest.  The 
establishment  by  the  national  government  of 'military  parks 
is  in  recognition  of  this  interest,  and  wherever,  therefore, 
there  are  parks  or  national  cemeteries  there  will  be  in  years 
to  come  a  constantly  increasing  throng  of  visitors.  Rich- 
mond, Shiloh,  Lookout  Mountain,  Chickamauga,  Vicks- 
burg,  Nashville,  Murfreesboro,  Atlanta,  Kennesaw  Moun- 
tain, Montgomery,  and  many  other  famous  places  in  the 
South  connected  with  the  war  will  forever  retain  their 
historic  importance.  States,  cities,  communities,  should 
unite  with  the  national  government  in  not  only  preserv- 
ing those  historic  fields,  but  in  adding  museums  and  schools. 
The  cities  and  places  where  they  have  been  set  apart  and 
dedicated  to  the  public  use  are  already  drawing  increasing 
numbers  of  visitors  every  year.  The  South  is  full  of  such 


The  So-nth' s  Sure  Way  to  Industrial  Peace        65 

historic  places,  and  for  the  good  of  communities  and  for 
the  pleasure  of  all  who  would  see  them,  it  is  wise  that  they 
are  dedicated  to  the  public.  The  attractiveness  of  these 
government  reservations  already  so  dedicated  vindicates 
both  the  motive  and  spirit  in  which  the  work  has  been  car- 
ried forward.  Let  the  South  cultivate  this  great  but  much 
neglected  asset. 

Large  Numbers  Not  a  Necessity. 

The  craze  for  large  numbers  of  people  gathered  into 
a  single  community  is  a  new  one  and  a  strange  one  for  the 
South.  Large  cities  and  large  factories,  however  desirable, 
too  frequently  bring  evils  in  their  train  which  often  out- 
weigh all  the  imagined  importance  gained  thereby.  The 
ideal  city,  where  men  are  most  prosperous,  where  homes 
are  happiest  and  where  conditions  are  best,  is  the  city  of 
moderate  size  and  of  steady,  conservative  growth.  The 
South  needs  no  large  cities.  What  she  does  need,  what 
she  wants,  and  what  she  must  have,  is  a  vast  number  of 
cities  of  average  size,  so  distributed  over  the  entire  section 
as  necessity  will  demand  and  as  the  conditions  of  trade  and 
industry  shall  require.  The  prosperous,  thriving  parts  of 
the  North  and  West  are  not  the  vast  cities  with  their  mil- 
lions or  their  hundreds  of  thousands  of  inhabitants.  The 
thriving,  happy  sections  are  those  where  the  center  of  every 
productive  area  is  a  city  of  moderate  size  that  supplies  all 
the  conveniences  required  by  the  surrounding  country  and  is 
supported  by  it.  Examples  are  not  needed ;  they  will  read- 
ily recur  to  every  mind.  The  more  equal  and  equitable 
distribution  of  wealth  is  the  great  end  desired  in  our  mod- 
ern civilization,  and  this  is  impossible  in  large  cities.  The 
ambition  of  the  South  to  have  a  New  York  or  a  Chicago 
is  a  wrong  as  well  as  a  hopeless  ambition.  The  average 
of  happiness,  of  morality,  of  wealth,  is  higher  in  the  South 
and  in  the  cities  of  average  size  in  the  North  than  in  either 
of  these.  The  large  cities  may  be  hives  of  industry,  but 
they  are  also  hotbeds  of  discontent,  crime  and  disease,  and 
the  home  of  a  grinding,  hopeless  poverty,  not  known  else- 
where. 

With  the  desire  for  large  numbers  and  for  industrial  ad- 
vancement has  come  the  desire  for  the  establishment  of 
great  enterprises,  and  communities  everywhere  are  striving- 
for  "million  dollar"  concerns  without  giving  thought  to  the 
fact  that  million  dollar  establishments  are  not  built  in  a  day. 


66  Papers  and  Addresses 

Then  they,  too,  want  "mergers" — consolidations.  But  let 
us  not  forget  that  "mergers"  and  consolidations  are  only 
in  their  experimental  stage.  Who  can  say  that  disintegra- 
tion will  not  soon  follow?  All  the  vast  industrial  concerns 
that  really  succeed  start  in  an  humble  way  and  by  legiti- 
mate and  steady  growth  and  development  attain  their  co- 
lossal proportions.  To  transplant  an  enterprise  of  this 
magnitude  to  a  new  location  or  to  begin  the  inauguration 
of  one  and  put  it  into  immediate  operation  involves  more 
than  communities  realize.  There  are  markets  to  be  secured 
raw  materials  in  steady  supply  to  be  found,  skilled  labor  in 
abundance  to  begin  with  the  first  day  of  its  operation.  Ques- 
tions of  transportation  and  disposition  of  the  product  and 
innumerable  other  questions  vitally  important  to  be  con- 
sidered are  too  often  overlooked.  Granting  the  establish- 
ment of  such  an  enterprise  the  chances  for  its  success  are 
small. 

Self-Help  in  the  South. 

The  Southern  people  have  been  too  much  given  to  wait- 
ing for  new  and  large  capital  to  establish  large  industrial 
plants,  but  those  who  have  solved  the  problem  are  those 
who  have  not  waited.  It  is  a  mistake  to  wait.  If  a  com- 
munity knows  what  enterprise  it  wants,  let  that  commun- 
ity start  that  enterprise  on  its  own  means,  all  uniting  to 
the  extent  of  their  ability  or  desire,  and  from  the  beginning 
thus  made  they  can  build  it  up  with  great  success.  The 
multitude  of  small  individual  investments  has  pointed  many 
communities  the  way  to  success.  When  one  succeeds  the 
rest  is  easy.  And  there  is  a  better  chance  for  success  be- 
cause of  the  fact  that  every  one  of  these  numerous  stock- 
holders is  a  worker  and  a  talker  for  the  general  growth. 

A  field  that  holds  out  large  promise  of  reward  is  in 
the  erection  of  elevators  and  warehouses  in  communities  of 
the  South.  If  every  community  or  the  center  of  an  agri- 
cultural district  possessed  facilities  for  storing  the  surplus 
grain,  cotton  and  tobacco,  and  so  saving  it  from  being 
thrown  on  an  over-supplied  market,  the  saving  to  the  pro- 
ducer would  be  vaster  than  can  well  be  calculated.  Thus 
legitimately  stored  in  warehouses,  the  grain,  tobacco  or 
cotton  could  be  used  as  collateral  by  the  producer,  and 
millions  of  dollars  that  are  now  lost  to  him  under  existing 
conditions  might  overwise  be  saved. 


The  South' s  Sure  Way  to  Industrial  Peace          67 

Proper  Labor  Conditions. 

There  is. certainly  no  other  section  of  the  United  States, 
and  possibly  no  other  part  of  the  world  where,  with  the 
right  sort  of  effort,  the  labor  conditions  can  be  made  more 
economically  correct,  and  the  life  of  the  laborer  more  de- 
lightful than  in  the  South.  There  is  a  guarantee  of  safety 
to  honest  labor  in  the  South  that  is  given  nowhere  else. 
The  climatic  conditions  are  favorable  to  the  laborer.  There 
he  may  work  more  days  every  year,  live  at  less  expenditure 
of  his  earnings,  and  with  greater  ease  provide  himself  with 
a  home.  The  possession  of  a  home  gives  to  the  laborer 
stability,  permanency  and  safety,  for  he  who  has  a  home  of 
his  own  is  conservative,  economizing,  industrious,  and  he 
is  thus  protected  against  his  own  worst  inclinations.  These 
facts  should  be  of  inestimable  value  in  aiding  to  bring 
about  the  improvement  in  all  labor  conditions  that  make 
for  the  lasting  good  of  the  laborer  in  general. 

Labor,  as  understood  in  great  industrial  communities, 
is  in  its  infancy  in  the  South,  and  the  great  industrial  in- 
stitutions as  compared  with  those  of  the  North  and  East 
are  still  few,  and  of  less  than  the  average  proportion.  It  is, 
therefore,  possible  in  the  South  to  go  to  work  and  build 
up  labor  institutions  and  conditions  from  the  very  begin- 
ning, and  build  them  up  as  they  should  be  for  the  greatest 
good  of  the  commonwealth ;  whereas,  to  accomplish  sim- 
ilar results  in  other  countries,  or  in  other  portions  of  our 
own  country,  existing  customs  and  conditions  must  first  be 
radically  changed,  or  revolutionized,  by  the  expenditure 
of  enormous  effort.  How  shall  we  proceed,  then,  to  build 
them  up  aright? 

To  bring  about  the  best  and  quickest  results,  a  system 
of  general  industrial  education  must  be  inaugurated,  and 
that  should  be  done  at  once.  What  the  South  needs  is 
trained  mechanics,  the  best  and  most  efficient  by  virtue  of 
being  the  most  skilled,  and  these  the  South  must  make,  for 
it  has  not  now  any  large  number  of  them.  The  times  de- 
mand them,  and  the  South  offers  rich  rewards  for  them. 
History  repeats  itself,  and  so  do  fashions  and  tastes  and 
customs.  To-day  we  have  a  returning  to  old  ways  in  many 
regards.  For  nearly  half  a  century  everything  has  been 
tending  in  the  direction  of  machine-made  goods.  Both  the 
best  and  the  worst  has  been  accomplished  by  the  aid  of 
machinery.  But  now  the  demand  is  for  things  made  by 


68  Papers  and  Addresses 

hand,  and  in  the  taste  for  hand-made  things,  the  admiration 
for  the  handicraft  of  man,  lies  the  opportunity  of  the 
skilled  worker.  In  hand-made  articles  skill  is  required,  and 
in  their  manufacture  much  or  all  of  the  work,  if  deemed 
advisable,  can  be  done  at  the  worker's  home.  For  it  is 
in  the  workshop  at  home  in  which  every  member  of  the 
family  can  find  employment  that  the  truest  happiness  will 
be  found. 

Practical  Education  a  Necessity. 

The  world's  educational  need  to-day,  and  the  educa- 
tional need  of  the  South  in  particular,  is  industrial  educa- 
tion— the  education  simultaneously  of  the  hands,  the  eye 
and  the  brain.  It  is  in  the  doing  of  things  and  in  the  mak- 
ing of  things  that  people  find  happiness,  and  the  way  to 
make  a  prosperous  as  well  as  a  happy  people  is  to  show 
them  what  to  do  and  how  to  do  it.  Some  of  the  millions 
of  dollars  given  to  great  universities  and  to  great  libraries 
could  be  most  profitably  applied  to  institutions  for  indus- 
trial training  and  to  teaching  the  English  language  to  the 
foreigner.  It  would  injure  neither  the  universities  nor  the 
libraries  and  would  be  a  tremendous  benefit  to  the  working 
classes  and  to  the  commonwealth.  While  the  many  will 
still  want  that  which  is  cheap,  there  must  be  a  constantly 
growing  number  of  those  who  have  the  money  to  get  that 
which  is  the  best  and  which  has  the  individuality  found  in 
hand-made  things  alone.  The  demand  for  such  articles  is 
already  greater  than  the  supply.  Attention  must  be  paid 
to  the  utilities  of  life  in  these  days,  and  we  have  Emerson's 
word  for  it  that  "the  acquisition  of  some  manual  skill  and 
the  practice  of  some  form  of  manual  labor  were  essential 
elements  of  culture,  and  this  idea  has  been  more  accepted 
in  the  systematic  education  of  youth."  Art  can  flourish 
only  where  the  worker  is,  and  where  the  hands  are,  edu- 
cated. The  hands  may  lead  the  soul  to  loftier  heights. 

Until  the  last  generation  the  necessity  of  earning  a  liv- 
ing was  not  general  in  the  South.  Fortunes  swept  away  by 
the  storms  of  war  left  the  entire  population  facing  a  new 
phase  in  the  economic  system.  Earning  a  living  is  new 
to  many  and  these  want  work  that  is  respectable.  Under 
the  new  conditions  women  in  the  South  want  to  work,  many 
of  them  must  work,  and  the  question  of  how  this  work  is  to 
be  performed  most  agreeably  and  safely  must  be  answered 
in  the  combination  of  the  workshop  and  the  home.  As  a 


The  South' s  Sure  W ay  to  Industrial  Peace          69 

single  instance  of  work  in  a  field  that  is  wide,  where  women 
may  work  with  profit,  a  recent  publication  of  the  Bureau 
of  Labor  was  devoted  to  the  revival  of  industrial  handicraft 
in  the  South  as  applied  to  the  weaving  of  the  ornamental 
bed  covers  for  which  the  women  of  the  South  were  noted 
in  the  days  before  the  advent  of  the  omnipresent  machine. 
For  these  covers,  the  bedspreads  of  our  mothers,  when 
dyed  after  the  old  permanent  fashion  and  woven  in  the 
olden  beautiful  designs,  there  is  a  greater  demand  than 
has  yet  been  supplied,  and  at  remunerative  prices.  Weav- 
ing is  peculiarity  a  womanly  art,  and  the  field  for  beautiful 
and  durable  fabrics  is  practically  unlimited.  And  so  with 
innumerable  other  delightful  occupations.  There  are  three 
pursuits  to-day  held  in  high  esteem — working  in  leather, 
wood-carving  and  book-binding — in  all  of  which  the  artistic 
worker  has  a  field  from  which  great  success  can  be  reaped. 
In  the  matter  of  book-binding  alone,  it  is  to  be  wondered 
at  that  the  expertness  of  women's  fingers  has  not  been 
called  more  into  play.  As  wealth  increases,  interest  in  the 
book-binder's  art  grows  amazingly,  and  if  there  is  a  limit 
to  the  possibilities  of  the  worker  here,  it  would  be  hard  to 
place  it.  It  is  a  fact  that  a  majority  of  towns  having  small 
public  libraries  have  to  send  away  from  home  binding  and 
repairing  enough  to  employ  the  constant  time  of  at  least 
one  worker.  And  if  there  were  a  binder  at  hand,  there 
would  be  more  than  the  libraries  to  work  for.  In  this  field 
the  demand  grows  faster  than  the  facilities  for  supplying  it. 
It  is  a  pleasant  occupation,  the  finer  parts  of  which  are 
readily  acquired  by  any  one  having  deft  fingers  and  a  fair 
amount  of  the  artistic  instinct. 

Up-Building  of  a  Middle  Class. 

By  fostering  and  multiplying  pursuits  we  build  up  the 
great  middle  class  to  be  the  dominant  class ;  and  more  than 
this,  the  free,  independent  class  anywhere  in  the  world — 
and  nowhere  more  than  in  America,  is  this  middle  class. 
The  prevalence  of  these  pursuits  makes  a  nation  rich.  What 
else  can  explain  the  independence  of  the  French  people 
than  the  multitude  of  artistic  callings  and  pursuits  in  which 
the  middle  classes  are  engaged?  It  was  the  unseen  wealth 
they  had  accumulated,  not  the  few  great  industries,  that 
had  enriched  the  country  so  that  the  French  were  able  to 
pay  the  great  war  debt  to  Germany  without  strain  or  suf- 
fering or  complaint.  France  is  a  great  hive  of  minor  indus- 


70  Papers  and  Addresses 

tries,  and  from  their  general  pursuit  comes  the  keen  and 
overmastering  artistic  sense  of  the  French  as  a  people. 

The  South  must  prosper  most  substantially  through  the 
multiplication  of  these  small  industries  and  in  the  increase 
of  its  home  institutions.  The  nearer  we  can  get  to  the 
times  when  everything  worn  by  man  and  woman  and  child 
is  made  from  home-grown  cotton  and  wool  and  flax,  spun 
and  woven  and  dyed  at  home,  the  nearer  we  shall  get  to  the 
really  beautiful  in  the  home  life  and  the  farther  on  the  road 
to  a  permanent  prosperity.  The  great  factories  bring  with 
them  larger  populations,  larger  responsibilities,  larger  cares, 
but  not  always  that  larger  happiness  so  desirable  and  so 
necessary.  The  South,  it  is  true,  can  better  care  for  the 
labor  employed  in  factories  than  is  possible  elsewhere,  but 
what  the  South  needs  most,  because  best  for  the  community, 
is  a  vast  number  of  the  home  industries,  where  the  best 
wprk  is  performed,  which  is  easily  disposed  of  at  the  high- 
est prices,  and  where  the  income  is  for  those  who  earned  it. 

My  meaning  may  best  be  illustrated  by  the  contrast  be- 
tween an  English  city  and  an  English  town,  both  well 
known  to  the  reader — Birmingham  and  Coventry.  Bir- 
mingham has  large  factories  and  great  wealth  in  few  hands 
— a  large  but  not  a  wholly  happy  population.  Coventry  is 
a  small,  beautiful  manufacturing  town,  situated  in  the  heart 
of  England,  and  its  people  are  noted  for  their  content  and 
happiness.  Wherein  lies  the  difference?  In  the  immense 
factories  of  Birmingham  working  people  are  herded  to- 
gether in  great  numbers.  In  Coventry  the  factories  are 
small  and  the  number  of  workers  is  limited  to  a  few,  in 
many  instances  to  the  members  of  a  single  family.  In  the 
large  city  all  individuality  is  stamped  out,  while  in  the 
small  town  individuality  is  developed.  In  Birmingham  the 
prosperity  of  the  place  may  mean  the  poverty  and  wretch- 
edness of  the  workers ;  in  Coventry  every  worker  shares  in 
the  general  advancement  and  in  what  labor  actually  earns. 
In  both  places  the  people  labor  with  their  hands,  but  there 
is  this  great  difference:  In  Birmingham  they  are  simply 
parts  of  great  machines,  while  in  Coventry  they  are  work- 
men. 

Small  Manufacturing  Enterprises  Best. 

Small  manufacturing  enterprises  are  better,  and  help 
a  community  more  than  great  factories  with  their  armies 
of  men  among  whom  there  is  no  high  aim  or  rivalry  to 


The  South' s  Sure  Way  to  Industrial  Peace          71 

excel.  What  the  South,  therefore,  wants  is  communities 
of  happy  and  contented  people,  but  they  will  never  secure 
these  by  demanding  a  few  or  many  immense  manufacturing 
establishments.  These  great  and  busy  cities,  with  their 
great  factories  and  mills,  may  excite  our  envy  at  times,  but 
despite  unsatisfied  ambition  for  numbers  the  Southern  city 
of  moderate  prosperity  is  far  better  off  than  they.  Coming 
out  of  the  noise  and  smoke  of  Birmingham,  Coventry  is  a 
refreshing  sight.  There  are  few  factories  of  great  size, 
but  as  the  visitor  passes  along  the  street  there  are  rows  of 
pretty,  well-built  houses,  ten  or  fifteen  feet  back  from  the 
street.  The  doors  bear  the  names  of  the  occupants  or  own- 
ers and  the  nature  of  their  business — never  rough,  but  busi- 
ness capable  of  being  done  in  small  compass.  The  people 
are  content  that  the  large  factories  and  mills  shall  be  estab- 
lished elsewhere. 

There  are  cities  in  the  South  adapted  to  rolling  mills, 
furnaces,  cotton  mills,  and  other  great  industrial  plants, 
but  most  of  the  cities  that  are  striving  for  these  things 
would  be  infinitely  better  off  as  Coventry  is — not  with  mills, 
furnaces,  factories  and  slaughter  houses,  that  bring  discon- 
tent, poverty,  dirt,  disease  and  squalor — but  with  small  fac- 
tories which  turn  out  the  finer,  the  more  delicate  and  the 
more  costly  products  and  that  yield  the  surer  and  the 
greater  profits — products  not  subject  to  violent  market 
changes.  This  work  is  more  congenial  to  the  Southern 
people,  and  would  make  the  communities  more  prosperous, 
better  satisfied  and  happier.  In  carrying  out  this  idea,  every 
man,  woman  and  child,  white  and  black,  has  an  equal 
chance.  No  questions  are  asked  when  the  products  of  in- 
dustry are  offered  as  to  whether  the  maker  is  a  black  or  a 
"poor  white,"  or  an  aristocrat.  Race  and  caste  are  never 
mentioned  when  a  craftsman  presents  something  worthy  of 
his  craft.  Social  equality  no  sane  person  wants,  but  indus- 
trial equality  in  all  handicrafts  is  everywhere  recognized. 
Herein  may  be  found  a  safe  solution  of  the  so-called  negro 
problem. 

There  are  cities  in  the  South  with  exceptional  advan- 
tages for  the  manufacture  of  every  article  made  of  wood. 
The  present  demand  for  articles — especially  of  furniture — 
made  by  hand,  opens  the  way  to  a  vast  number  of  workers 
in  little  shops  of  their  own.  They  can  find  a  ready  market 
for  all  beautiful  things  in  which  the  labor  is  the  chief 
factor.  The  same  is  true  of  the  finer  ornamental  or  ham- 


72  Papers  and  Addresses 

mered  metal  work.  Where  the  great  factories  are  beset 
with  problems  of  fuel  and  transportation  and  labor,  the 
home  shop  has  none  of  these  perplexities.  Less  trouble, 
larger  and  surer  profits,  happiness  and  content,  are  all  on 
the  side  of  the  small  industries.  Here  there  are  many  mas- 
ters— few  servants.  In  any  city  of  75,000  people  there  are 
at  least  five  hundred  different  articles  that  can  be  manufac- 
tured in  the  home  shop  with  profit  from  the  home  market 
alone. 

Encouragement  to  Home  Products. 

The  home  market  brings  us  to  a  phase  of  the  industrial 
problem  that  is  rarely  ever  understandingly  met — the  duty 
of  helping  your  own  community.  In  any  new  manufactur- 
ing section  this  is  usually  an  absolute  essential  of  success, 
but  the  South  has  in  times  past  allowed  disaster  to  over- 
take many  a  promising  enterprise  that  a  little  timely  help 
in  the  way  of  home  patronage  would  have  saved.  It  has 
been  often  observed  that  many  Southerners  buy  their  sup- 
plies at  home  only  when  they  haven't  money  or  credit  with 
which  to  buy  abroad. 

What  right,  then,  have  we  to  complain  that  wealth  is 
concentrated  in  a  few  hands  so  long  as  we,  each  one  of  us, 
persist  in  giving  all  to  them  that  have  most — persist  in 
sending  our  money  into  the  large  markets  of  the  world, 
where  it  goes  into  the  coffers  of  the  rich,  and  pass  by  on 
the  other  side  the  deserving  and  the  needy  artisan  at  home? 
This  is  not  said  in  criticism  or  hatred  of  the  rich,  or  because 
of  any  dislike  for  large  cities.  It  is  said  in  justice  to  the 
struggling  masses  seekng  to  reach  the  fine  level  of  the 
middle  class.  Thus  we  will  be  distributing  wealth  more 
equally  than  is  otherwise  possible  and  hence  establishing  a 
high  average  of  morality,  intelligence  and  contentment  in 
the  community.  If  we  would  build  an  ideal  commonwealth 
we  must  first  encourage  and  appreciate  those  closest  to  us. 
These  virtues,  like  charity,  should  be  practiced  first  at 
home. 

A  great  advantage  coming  to  the  South  in  the  early 
future  by  way  of  encouragement  to  the  home  shop,  spoken 
of  above,  is  the  interurban  railroad  system  just  now  being 
talked  of  in  the  South.  In  the  North  and  East,  and  in  some 
sections  of  the  central  West,  already  whole  parts  of  a  state 
or  sections  of  adjoining  states  are  strung  together  on  the 
same  electric  wire,  and  along  these  lines,  within  easy  reach 


The  South's  Sure  Way  to  Industrial  Peace          73 

of  adjoining-  towns  and  cities,  live  many  workers.  In  the 
South,  where  land  is  so  much  cheaper -than  in  other  sec- 
tions of  the  country,  this  will  offer  an  additional  induce- 
ment to  the  worker,  and  additional  field  for  the  prosecution 
of  minor  industries.  But  before  the  fullest  possible  result 
can  be  attained,  there  must  be  an  uplifting  along  the  line 
of  industrial  education.  A  start  is  being  made  in  the 
schools  of  a  few  cities,  but  only  in  an  initiatory  way.  It 
is  a  matter  of  fact  that  more  of  this  industrial  education 
movement  is  to  be  found  among  the  negroes  than  among  the 
whites.  Two  notable  examples  of  what  is  being  done 
among  the  negroes  are  furnished  by  the  institutions  at 
Tuskegee  and  Hampton  Roads,  where  noble  work  is  being 
done,  and  where  have  been  developed  suggestions  that  the 
white  people  of  the  country  would  do  well  to  follow. 

Homogeneousness  of  the  Southern  People. 

The  South  is  fortunate  in  more  than  has  been  men- 
tioned. The  homogeneousness  of  its  people,  the  speaking 
of  a  single  language,  fine  climatic  conditions,  a  personal 
liberty  and  standing  which  the  worker  does  not  elsewhere 
enjoy,  the  greater  opportunity  of  easily  acquiring  a  home, 
are  in  the  worker's  favor.  But  what  of  the  employer  ?  With 
the  proper  care  the  future  is  in  his  own  hands.  The  em- 
ployer must  study  the  problem  from  a  new  standpoint,  dis- 
regarding the  past.  In  the  South  conditions  differ  vastly 
from  what  exists  anywhere  else.  The  scarcity  of  indus- 
trial institutions  is  marked  by  a  similar  scarcity  of  skilled 
labor.  But  right  at  his  hand  is  an  abundant  supply  of  the 
most  intelligent,  the  readiest  to  learn,  of  any  unskilled 
labor  in  the  world.  The  development  of  the  South  indus- 
trially can  be  accompanied  by  guarantees  of  permanent  in- 
dustrial peace  if  the  situation  be  studied  and  existing  con- 
ditions utilized  by  the  employer.  Employer  and  employe 
may  grow  together,  by  building  up  the  character  and  skill 
of  the  workers  along  with  the  industries  of  the  South.  The 
North  is  unfortunate  in  that  the  industries  are  often  fully, 
if  not  even  abnormally,  developed,  so  that  it  becomes  neces- 
sary to  educate  the  workers  as  far  as  practicable,  and  this 
usually  amounts  to  half  education — imperfect,  naturally, 
under  such  conditions.  It  cannot  be  otherwise  where  in- 
dustrial development  proceeds  faster  than  the  education 
of  the  workers.  In  this  the  South's  greatest  opportunity 
lies.  As  the  industries  multiply  and  increase,  as  they  de- 


74  Papers  and  Addresses 

mand  more  workers  and  better  workers,  these  workers 
may  be  trained,  may  be  made  ready  to  meet  the  demands, 
and  may  be  increased  in  efficiency  and  numbers  both,  as  the 
industrial  development  proceeds. 

Then  can  the  South  become  a  land  where  there  is  some- 
thing for  every  one  to  do,  and  where  every  one  has  been 
trained  to  do  something.  Nothing  will  so  readily  lead  to 
an  equitable,  a  more  nearly  equal,  distribution  of  the  world's 
wealth  than  the  universal  application  of  the  energy  and  ca- 
pacity with  which  God  Almighty  has  endowed  the  human 
race. 

Let  us  not  forget  that  the  two  things  that  more  than  all 
others  threaten  the  well  being  of  the  South  to-day  are,  the 
effort  to  quickly  attain  great  wealth  and  the  effort  to  grow 
large  rapidly.  These  have  been  found  to  curse  elsewhere. 
Riches  that  come  steadily  and  legitimately  remain  longer 
with  us,  and  the  gradual,  healthy  growth  of  a  plant,  a  hu- 
man being  or  a  community,  is  the  only  desirable  growth. 
"Make  haste  slowly,"  is  usually  a  good  motto  to  follow. 
So  far  the  South's  increase  has  been  devoid  of  phenomena, 
but  the  continued  gain  year  after  year  has  brought  it  in 
the  past  generation  to  a  commanding  position  and  to  a  plane 
where  the  promise  of  the  future  is  greater  than  the  achieve- 
ment of  the  past.  To  win  all  that  is  implied  in  that  promise, 
it  is  only  necessary  for  the  South  to  proceed  along  the  safe 
lines  of  conservative  and  steady  effort — to  make  workers, 
not  machines — to  build  character,  not  bauble  reputation. 
Then  will  all  the  good  and  desirable  things  be  added  to  her 
for  her  own  glory  and  for  the  well-being  of  generations 
yet  unborn. 


THE  RELATIONS  OF 

LABOR  AND  CAPITAL 


The  great  prince  of  peace,  at  the  mention  of  whose  name 
every  head  should  bow  and  every  knee  bend  is  credited  with 
having  said  to  the  Jews  which  believed  on  him,  "If  ye 
continue  in  my  word,  then  are  ye  my  disciples,  and  ye  shall 
know  the  truth  and  the  truth  shall  make  you  free." 

On  this  glad  day  set  apart  by  the  representatives  of  a 
free  government,  in  order  that  American  toilers  might 
appropriately  commemorate  whatever  advance  they  have 
made  in  the  direction  of  higher  standards  of  living  and 
higher  ideals  of  citizenship,  we  should  ponder  well  the  as- 
surances of  the  Savior :  "If  ye  continue  in  my  word,  ye 
shall  know  the  truth,  and  the  truth  shall  make  you  free." 
On  this  happy  occasion,  my  fellow  citizens,  I  desire  to  apply 
these  divine  words  to  the  relations  that  you  and  all  of  us 
bear  to  the  true  spirit  of  unionism.  I  desire  also,  with 
genuine  pride  as  an  American  citizen,  to  rejoice  with  you 
in  whatever  advance  has  been  made  as  the  result  of  organ- 
ized labor,  and,  under  the  changed  conditions,  to  point  out, 
without  offense,  our  duties  and  our  dangers.  The  repre- 
sentatives of  American  capital  can  ask  no  greater  boon 
than  the  fulfillment  of  the  hopes  and  promises  of  the 
founders  of  unionism,  viz.,  the  advancement  of  the  toiling 
masses  to  higher  standards  of  living  and  to  higher  concep- 
tions of  citizenship.  By  keeping  your  eye  firmly  fixed  on 
these  high  and  worthy  aims  of  true  unionism ;  by  bending 
every  noble  energy  to  attain  them,  you  will  prove  your- 
selves true  unionists ;  you  will  show  yourself  to  be  true 
American  patriots ;  you  will  know  the  truth  indeed  and  the 
truth  will  make  you  free.  And  unless  you  attain  to  these 
high  aims  your  progress  in  organization  will  have  been 
made  in  vain ;  the  highest  possible  scale  of  wages  will  do 
you  no  good,  and  the  eight-hour  law  will  prove  to  be  a 
curse  instead  of  a  blessing.  For  assuredly  if  higher  wages 
do  not  mean  greater  comforts  and  opportunities  for  your 

*An  address  delivered  under  the  auspices  of  the  Federation  of 
Labor,  on  Labor  Day,  Sept.  3,  1900,  at  Springfield,  111. 

75 


76  Papers  and  Addresses 

wives  and  children ;  if  the  added  hours  of  leisure  are  not 
used  wisely,  it  were  better  that  your  wages  had  remained 
low  and  your  hours  of  leisure  were  reduced.  These  may 
not  be  pleasant  truths  to  some  of  you,  but  I  believe  there 
are  tens  of  thousands  of  high-minded  laborers  and  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  good  women  and  promising  children  who 
wrill  thank  me  for  having  spoken  them. 

Two  Cardinal  Truths. 

I  should  be  unworthy  to  stand  here  as  a  representative 
of  the  capital  class;  I  should  show  scant  courtesy  to  your 
committee  who  have  invited  me  to  speak  on  the  relations 
of  capital  and  labor,  did  I  not  weigh  well  my  every  utter- 
ance and  speak  the  truth  at  this  time  as  I  would  speak 
it  if  this  moment  was  my  last.  I  might  tell  you  only 
pleasant  things  and  so  for  the  time  being  please  you  and 
win  your  applause,  but  in  the  end  I  should  thus  injure  you 
and  the  cause  you  have  at  heart,  and  so  deserve  your 
contempt.  You  know_  full  well  that  the  man  who  would 
use  the  present  occasion  to  tell  you  that  the  laborer  is 
always  right  and  his  employer  is  always  wrong,  is  not 
your  friend.  He  is  rather  a  mischief  maker  and  a  self- 
seeking  demagogue  who  feeds  and  grows  fat  upon  human 
strife  and  the  consequent  misfortunes  of  his  fellows.  Equal- 
ly to  be  despised  are  they  who  ignore  the  rights  of  the 
toiling  masses,  or  who,  having  ears,  hear  not ;  having  eyes, 
see  not.  As  for  those  timid  representatives  of  capital,  they 
who  see  in  trades  unionism  a  roaring  lion  at  the  end  of 
every  lane,  I  would  not  worry  about  them.  They  are  not 
hostile  to  you,  but  are  simply  over-conservative,  and  so  they 
are  slow  to  adopt  new  ideas.  Rely  upon  reason  and  example 
to  win  them  over  to  these  modern  ideas,  for  as  you  well 
know,  every  reform  is  attended  alike  with  difficulties  and 
with  mistakes,  and  the  reform  inaugurated  by  the  cham- 
pions of  the  cause  of  labor  is  no  exception  to  the  common 
rule.  They  can  see  no  excuse  for  or  justice  in  violence, 
which  unfortunately  has  been  too  common,  and  as  all  re- 
forms founded  upon  and  prosecuted  in  a  spirit  of  frank- 
ness, fairness  and  love  have  survived  and  their  principles 
are  eternal,  so,  too,  your  reform  must  have  as  its  founda- 
tion stones  justice  and  right  if  the  gulf  that  yawns  between 
capital  and  labor  is  to  be  forever  closed,  and  universal 
recognition  is  to  be  given  to  true  unionism.  There  are 
two  cardinal  truths  which  I  desire  to  impress  upon  the 


Relations  of  Capital  and  Labor  77 

representatives   of   both   capital   and   labor,   and   which,   if 
kept  in  mind,  will  make  their  reconciliation  easy.  These  are : 

i  st.  That  capital  legitimately  employed  is  entitled  to 
the  protection  of  the  laborer  and  to  the  protection  of  the 
law. 

2nd.  That  labor  honestly  performed  is  entitled  to  its 
full  reward,  and  that  the  conditions  surrounding  the  labor- 
er and  his  family  shall  be  consistent  with  the  demands  of 
modern  civilization. 

From  these  truths  what  conclusion  is  to  be  drawn,  and 
these  truths  being  admitted  what  is  our  duty  in  the  prem- 
ises? Certainly  the  conclusion  to  be  drawn  is,  that  capital 
and  labor  are  mutually  dependent,  and  that  therefore  each 
owes  to  the  other  a  solemn  duty.  This  duty  is  embodied 
in  the  two  cardinal  truths  I  have  just  endeavored  to  enun- 
ciate, imposing  at  the  same  time  upon  both  the  still  higher 
duty  of  preserving  at  all  hazards  peace  and  order,  and  of 
enforcing  observance  of  the  laws  and  respect  for  the  con- 
stituted authority  of  our  land.  But  if  it  happen  that  either 
capital  or  labor  have  a  grievance  growing  out  of  the  in- 
sufficiency or  inadequacy  of  our  laws,  then  change  those 
laws  in  the  manner  prescribed  by  the  constitution  of  the 
state  or  nation,  and  not  otherwise.  Rest  assured  that  no 
cause  can  triumph  on  American  soil,  be  it  the  cause  of  con- 
solidated capital  or  of  organized  labor,  if  that  cause  is  in 
any  sense  opposed  to  the  spirit  of  free  institutions,  and 
even  if  that  cause  seem  ever  so  worthy,  public  sympathy 
will  be  withdrawn,  if  to  achieve  it  we  ignore  the  examples 
of  our  Fathers,  or  depart  from  the  principles  for  which 
they  struggled  in  the  infancy  of  the  republic.  Thank  God, 
no  cause  can  long  survive  in  this  free  land  unless  it  have 
public  sympathy  and  public  opinion  on  its  side,  and  depend 
upon  it  also,  that  no  question  is  ever  settled  until  it  is  set- 
tled rightly.  Consolidated  capital  by  reason  of  greater 
wealth,  or  organized  labor  because  of  superior  numbers 
may  triumph  for  a  season,  but  it  is  only  a  question  of  a  little 
time  until  old  wounds  shall  bleed  afresh  and  capital  and 
labor  shall  become  more  estranged  than  ever,  unless  their 
differences  are  settled  by  a  standard  that  no  fair  man  can 
dispute. 

Honest  Praise  and  Honest  Criticism. 

On  this  day,  therefore,  set  apart  in  the  interest  and  in 
honor  of  organized  labor,   I   feel  we  should  be  honest  in 


78  Papers  and  Addresses 

our  praise  and  fair  in  our  criticism  of  the  interests,  which 
in  a  sense,  we  respectively  and  at  the  same  time  jointly 
represent.  It  is  the  proper  time  for  capital  and  labor  to 
realize  that  the  great  labor  problem  is  the  problem  of  our 
times;  that  it  is  the  problem  that  affects  us  as  does  no 
other  one  before  the  American  people;  that  it  is  the  one 
problem  we  shall  have  with  us  always,  or  at  least  until 
it  is  rightly  solved  and  until  the  true  relations  of  capital 
and  labor  are  fully  established  and  universally  recognized. 
I  congratulate  organized  labor  upon  its  part  thus  far  in 
solving  it,  and  upon  its  marvelous  growth,  and  in  wishing 
it  ever  increasing  prosperity,  let  me  warn  you  that  it  needs 
something  more  than  numbers  and  power.  Your  organi- 
zation is  already  powerful,  but  something  besides  numbers 
and  organization  is  necessary.  You  need  discipline,  and 
underlying  discipline  high  character  is  imperatively  de- 
manded. Abave  all  else  wise  leadership  is  necessary  and 
you  can't  all  lead,  nor  can  you  all  tell  exactly  how  you  shall 
be  led.  Choose,  then,  as  your  officials,  as  your  leaders, 
your  best  men ;  trust  them,  heed  their  counsel,  make  them 
strong  and  wise  by  following  them  with  confidence  and 
submission,  and  your  success  is  assured.  In  no  other  way 
is  it  possible.  In  no  other  way  can  you  bring  out  the  quali- 
ties of  leadership.  Officials  who  go  around  with  their  ear 
to  the  ground — as  do  some  public  men  in  America — are 
only  demagogues ;  they  are  only  time  servers ;  they  are  ad- 
vocates of  the  cause  of  labor  for  revenue  only,  or  for  office 
only. 

Character  Makes  Triumph  Sure. 

No,  my  fellow  citizens,  it  is  not  numbers,  nor  organiza- 
tion, nor  power  that  will  make  you  truly  strong,  or  great,  or 
make  your  triumph  sure.  It  is  character ;  it  is  the  lives  you 
lead;  it  is  fidelity  to  your  wives  and  duty  nobly  done  in 
behalf  of  your  children,  that  will  tell  in  the  long  run,  and 
will  achieve  everything  you  can  reasonably  desire.  Let 
your  individual  example  of  sobriety,  industry  and  thrift, 
your  comfortable  homes  and  happy  families,  be  so  striking 
in  their  superiority  that  every  toiler  now  without  the  fold 
will  seek  admission  to  your  union.  You  have  then  only  to 
open  your  ranks  and  they  will  come  in.  Thus  they  will  be 
doing  what  you  desire  of  them ;  labor  will  then  be  united 
indeed ;  reverence  for  things  sacred  will  be  re-established ; 
authority  will  be  recognized,  the  laws  obeyed,  and  peace 


Relations  of  Capital  and  Labor  79 

and  plenty  secured  for  all  who  labor,  whether  that  labor  be 
of  the  hand  or  of  the  brain.  Then,  too,  let  me  confidently 
assure  you,  that  employers  of  labor  everywhere  will  not 
only  approve  of  the  union,  but  they  will  gladly  urge  their 
employees  to  enter  it,  and  more  than  this,  organized  capital 
everywhere  will  be  happy  to  recognize  organized  labor  and 
treat  with  it  on  terms  of  equality  and  fairness. 

When,  then,  we  arrive  at  this  advanced  stage  of  civili- 
zation, which  I  am  optimist  enough  to  fondly  believe  is 
not  far  distant,  we  shall  never  hear  of  strikes,  and  only  oc- 
casionally will  there  be  need  for  arbitration,  all  differences 
and  disputes  being  settled  in  a  practical,  common  sense 
and  manly  way,  viz.,  by  conciliation.  Indulge  me  while 
I  give  briefly  my  ideas  of  the  different  methods  of  settling 
disputes  between  employer  and  emplo)  e. 

To  try  to  compel  settlement  by  a  strike  is  simply  to  test 
the  power  of  intimidation  and  force  on  the  one  hand, 
against  money  and  endurance  on  the  other,  and  in  the  con- 
flict of  the  two  it  is  always  might  that  triumphs,  and  while 
it  is  not  claimed  that  right  is  not  sometimes,  or  often  even, 
on  the  side  of  might  it  is  only  because  the  two  are  united 
that  justice  prevails. 

Settlement  by  arbitration  is,  in  the  main,  a  compromise 
of  interests,  each  party  reluctantly  yielding  something  to 
re-establish  peaceful  relations,  at  the  same  time  often  secur- 
ing only  half  justice  to  either  party  to  the  contest. 

Settlement  by  conciliation  is  the  common  sense  applica- 
tion of  the  golden  rule  to  differences  or  disputes  arising 
between  employer  and  employe,  and  differences  or  dis- 
putes so  settled  are  founded  upon  what  each  side  finally 
concedes  to  be  right. 

The  Illinois  Plan. 

Some  of  you  no  doubt  know,  and  to  those  who  do  not 
know  it,  I  rejoice  to  tell  it,  that  the  United  Mine  Workers 
of  Illinois  and  the  Illinois  Coal  Operators'  Association, 
have  resolved  to  adopt  the  common  sense,  manly  plan  of 
adjusting  all  differences  between  coal  operators  and  coal 
miners,  of  taking  them  up  and  considering  them  in  a  spirit 
of  fairness,  and  of  adjusting  them  upon  their  merits  solely, 
and  if  their  success  of  the  past  three  months  continues  in 
the  future  we  shall  hear  no  more  of  angry  strikes  in  the 
state  of  Illinois. 

I  rejoice  to  tell  you  that  this  movement  has  been  met 


8o  Papers  and  Addresses 

by  all  classes  everywhere  with  favor  and  it  has  received 
their  hearty  approval.  Is  it  too  much  to  expect,  or  at  least 
to  hope,  that  the  same  sensible  plan  will  be  universally 
adopted,  thus  uniting  capital  and  labor  for  the  wise  and 
happy  ends  designed  by  the  Creator? 

But  why  not  give  to  this  movement  the  approval  and 
support  of  every  citizen?  Does  it  not  deserve  it?  Was 
it  not  conceived  in  a  spirit  of  justice  and  fairness?  Was 
it  not  born  of  the  necessities  of  our  times?  Can  it  mean 
anything  else  than  that  we  are  resolved  to  render  unto  cap- 
ital what  it  capital's  and  unto  labor  what  is  labor's?  By 
this  plan  do  we  not  insure  protection  and  profit  to  the  one, 
and  employment  and  fair  wages  to  the  other?  Does  it  not 
restore  peace  where  there  was  discord?  Does  it  not  en- 
courage and  exact  fair  dealing  among  men?  Does  it  not 
give  to  organized  labor  the  recognition  it  asks  and  to  capital 
the  consideration  it  deserves?  Who,  then,  will  have  the 
temerity  to  oppose  a  movement  designed  for  your  advance- 
ment, and  for  ours,  to  higher  standards  of  living  and  to 
higher  ideals  of  citizenship? 

For  one,  my  heart  is  in  this  work,  and  I  fondly  believe 
it  has  the  support  of  the  wisest  leaders  of  labor  and  the 
fairest  representatives  of  capital  in  free  America.  To- 
gether let  us  all  labor  for  a  cause,  which,  if  it  succeeds, 
and  succeed  it  must,  will  contribute  to  the  realization  of 
our  highest  hopes  and  add  honor  and  glory  to  the  American 
name.  Then,  indeed,  we  shall  realize  the  full  meaning  of 
those  sublime  words,  "If  ye  continue  in  my  word,,  ye  shall 
know  the  truth,  and  the  truth  shall  make  you  free." 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA   LIBRARY 
BERKELEY 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
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expiration  of  loan  period. 


MAY  11  1918 


50m-7.'16 


YC  26147 


